


cherry apple pie

by ShowMeAHero



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Babies, Childbirth, Conflict Resolution, Crying, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Families of Choice, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Newborn Children, Panic Attacks, Pregnancy, Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vomiting, acts of service
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:34:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: The onefuckingtime Eddie’s not careful, andthishappens.No, it’s not,Eddie thinks to himself.It’s not happening, because there’s no way this is happening, and I’m overreacting.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 356
Kudos: 580





	1. google search: is there an app where i can remotely delete a cvs security tape

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE read the tags before reading this. please i am begging you to read them please
> 
> this is gonna be an ongoing wip i'm doing for fun and for gender reasons and also exciting writing fun reasons! hope you also enjoy if you stay along with me!

Eddie’s a nervous wreck all the way to CVS. He hasn’t told anyone where he’s going, because, logically, he’s wrong. He’s come to all the wrong conclusions, and the odds are that he’s completely wrong. He’s a— He’s great with numbers! He always has been, good with probability and likelihood and risk and reward and he knows, he  _ knows  _ the chances of this  _ should  _ have been slim to none. Not even slim, actually, just—  _ none.  _ Eddie’s on T, and Richie’s doctors said his vasectomy reversal hadn’t worked, so there’s been no reason to be careful.

The one  _ fucking _ time Eddie’s not careful, and  _ this  _ happens.

_ No, it’s not,  _ Eddie thinks to himself.  _ It’s not happening, because there’s no way this is happening, and I’m overreacting. _

Eddie starts making a beeline for the family planning section in CVS, but then his hands start to sweat, so he takes a sharp right turn into cosmetics instead. There, his hands go numb, so he quickly exits and turns down the aisle with all the tiny toiletries for vacations. His phone buzzes in his pocket, but he doesn’t take it out. He can only focus on one thing at a time right now or he’ll start to freak out. Instead, he grabs a travel bottle of shampoo to hold.

For a moment, Eddie just stares down at the bottle in his hands. It’s so small. Richie wouldn’t be able to wash his hair with this amount on a normal vacation. They won’t be able to take any normal vacations anytime soon, though, if he’s right. And— And they’ll need new shampoos, and new furniture, and new clothes, and maybe a new  _ house,  _ and—

Eddie exhales roughly, scrubbing at his eye with one fist. When he drops the shampoo back into the bin with the others, it clatters against them. A hundred tiny bottles, but the one touched by his hand is skin-warm, making it just that  _ little  _ bit different. Everyone’s the same, but maybe something  _ he  _ did could be just— just a  _ little  _ bit different.

With that thought hovering in his mind, Eddie forces himself to navigate backwards to family planning. When he stares at the pregnancy tests, it only takes him a minute to find the one he had researched on an incognito tab on his phone. The combination of fastest and most accurate, for his own mental health. Picking it up in his hands makes it feel too real, but then it pivots and becomes— almost silly. Like he’s in a movie about some poor teenager who got knocked up by their dumb boyfriend and needs to figure out how to tell their parents as soon as they’re sure.

Eddie’s twenty-nine. He has a therapist that's helped him with the clown stuff  _ and  _ the Mom stuff  _ and  _ the rest of it, too. He and Richie have been together for eleven years. He co-owns the garage with Mike. He and Richie have paid off their house. This isn’t in  _ any  _ plan he's made,  _ ever. _ They had no idea there was even the slightest  _ probability  _ that this would be one of their plans. Eddie had thought maybe they’d adopt, a little further down the road. He’d never expected  _ this.  _ Neither of them  _ ever  _ expected this.

The box is too light in his hands. He wishes, briefly, that it was heavier. He thinks it might feel more real if it was. As it is, he nearly crushes the cardboard under his hands, tightening knuckles going white with his grip on the box. He inhales once, slowly, then lets the breath out even slower. He does it again, then again. After a long moment, he's able to force himself to go up to the pharmacy counter with it.

The guy behind the register doesn't bat an eye. He's probably assuming Eddie's grabbing this for someone else, or— Or, at least, that's what Eddie  _ hopes _ this guy is thinking. It's already slightly fucking with his brain to think otherwise.

When Eddie's paid for the test, he makes his way to the very back of the store where the bathrooms are and takes the single-stall men's room, grateful for the lock on the heavy door. He'd read the instructions over and over again online, but he reads them again now as he pulls the test itself free of its packaging.

After a couple more deep breaths, Eddie actually takes the test before quickly setting it on the counter beside the sink and scrubbing his hands raw and clean under the hot water. He scrapes at them for so long the test starts to change to give him an answer. He has to look away.

The alarm on his phone beeps. He has no choice but to dry his hands to turn it off before he steels himself to look back down at the test on the counter. It takes a second but, when he moves, he snatches the test up in his hand and inhales sharply to read it.

He almost curses, but he can't speak. He feels like his knees and shins have gone all numb, pins-and-needles to nothing at all. The floor looks disgusting, but all Eddie wants is to crumple up on it and scream. Fear and a wild lack of control claw at his chest all at once; his phone buzzes again in his pocket, but he can't reach for it. All he can do is stare down at the stupid fucking test.

His phone stops buzzing, then starts again. With a huff, he slams the test on the edge of the sink and yanks his phone out of his pocket. Richie's name and face are filling the screen. Looking down at him, Eddie abruptly panics and rejects the call.

For a moment, Eddie just stares down at his black screen in horror. Then, it starts to ring again. This time, he swipes to answer, hands shaking.

"Are you okay?" Richie asks, the second Eddie has the phone up to his ear. "Eds?"

"I'm okay," Eddie says. He sounds choked even to his own ears.

"Are you still on your way home?" Richie asks. "Are you in the car?"

"No, I stopped off at— Uhh," Eddie says, then stops, looking at himself in the mirror over the sink. He's a quick and excellent liar, usually — had to be, the way he grew up — but his mind is all clouded and he can't think straight. "Shit. I stopped at CVS."

"That's— Alright, that's fine," Richie tells him hesitantly. "Nothing wrong with stopping at CVS."

There's a beat of silence before Eddie exhales shakily, and he's horrified when the breath audibly breaks and he nearly starts to cry. He brings his free hand up over his mouth and nose to stifle the sound, mortified and enraged at himself.

"Eds, you're okay," Richie says softly on the other end. "Do you want me to come get you?"

"No, I— I'm leaving soon, I'll be home in a few minutes," Eddie tells him. "Then I'll— I'll talk to you, okay?"

"Okay," Richie replies. "Are— Can I ask if I— Did I do something wro—"

_ "No,"  _ Eddie cuts him off. "No, you didn't do anything wrong, this is— Nothing is actually— Well, that's—" Eddie stops himself, then exhales, slowly this time.

"Don't worry about it," Richie tells him. Just listening to him talk and remembering that he's not actually alone in the world is helpful; the cadence and tone of his voice are so warm and comforting that he shuts his eyes and just breathes listening to it. "You just drive home nice and safe and slow and we'll talk about whatever it is when you get here, okay? And whatever it is, well, we'll— I'll figure it out for you. I'll fix everything, okay?"

Eddie runs his hand back through his hair, feeling it unstick with sweat as he laughs shakily. "Okay. I'm— I'm sorry, I'm just— I think I'm freaking out."

"Oh, you think so?" Richie asks. Eddie snorts a laugh. "There's my Eddie. Okay, you ready to drive? Gonna drive home now, big guy? No more crying in the CVS?"

Eddie starts laughing again, managing to say, voice damp, "Oh,  _ fuck you—" _

"Come on home, Eds," Richie says. "I'll give you a big ol' hug like you say you hate and I know you like."

"You're just such a monstrous size," Eddie says, grabbing the test off the sink and wrapping it in twelve paper towels before he has to make himself stop. "Gotta be good for something."

"I exist to be Eddie Kaspbrak's weighted blanket," Richie sighs, like he's put-upon. Eddie smiles again, stuffing the paper towel brick into his pocket.

"Well, stick with what you know," Eddie replies. He gets his shit together, scrubs his face with cold water, slicks his hair back, then exhales.

"You good?" Richie asks again. Eddie wonders if he is or not.

"Yeah," he says, in the end. "Will you— Okay, don't make fun of me, but will you stay on the line until I get home?"

He's really expecting Richie to at least tease him, but instead, he just says, "Of course. Anything you want, Eds."

"Okay." Eddie takes another deep breath, then leaves the bathroom, finally. He's glad there's nobody waiting outside the door so that he can all but run right out of the place. "Okay, I'm— Alright, I'm out the doors and I'm in the parking lot."

"Thanks, Agent Kaspbrak," Richie replies. "We've got some more exploding pens back at base for you."

"You'd make a shitty Quartermaster," Eddie tells him. Once he gets behind the wheel of his car, he needs to take another breath, but then he's good to start it up.

"Hey, I think I'd be great at it," Richie argues with him. He starts to make his points, more detailed than he probably would be on a normal day, but Eddie's just grateful to listen to his voice without pause, not that he's always capable of expressing that in so many words.

"I'm turning onto our street," Eddie says, cutting Richie off midway through the 'good at work banter' segment of his argument.

"I'll come open the door for you," Richie tells him. He doesn't hang up the phone, though, and Eddie's chest hurts from being understood so fundamentally by him.

Sure enough, when Eddie pulls into their driveway, Richie's standing in the open front doorway. He waves with his free hand, the other one still holding his phone up to his ear.

"Look at you," Richie says through the phone. Eddie sees his mouth move before he looks away to park the car.  _ "Very  _ handsome today. Have I told you recently how cute you are? 'Cause you are."

"Jesus, Richie," Eddie grumbles, like Richie's said something outrageous and scandalous instead of something nice. For them, that  _ is _ pretty scandalous, in all honesty.

When Eddie gets out of the car, Richie steps out of their doorway onto the front porch. Eddie slams the door behind himself and briefly tries to force himself to walk before he decides to fuck dignity; his hands are fucking shaking and he wants to be with Richie  _ now. _

He hangs up his phone, finally, and shoves it in his other pocket before colliding with Richie's chest on their porch steps. Richie folds around him instantly, burying his face in Eddie's hair and rocking him slightly, back and forth. He kisses his temple, then pulls back to kiss his forehead.

"What's up, short stuff?" Richie asks. Eddie smacks at his chest without pulling away; he's not ready to leave the only place he's felt safe and sane all day. "What's in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?"

Eddie's blood runs cold again. In an instant, he feels like— like if he says this out loud to another person, then maybe he's not enough of a man, or masculine enough, or strong enough. He doesn't want anyone to see him that way, even Richie—  _ Especially  _ Richie, and he starts to panic.

Richie smooths his hands down Eddie's arms. "Hey, Earth to Planet Eddie, come back. What's up?"

Looking up at Richie, Eddie remembers this is  _ Richie.  _ The same guy who broke him out of his mother's house so he could go to college, the same guy who worked three jobs so he could afford T while he was going to school, the same guy who has always looked at Eddie like he's looking at him now: all warm, big blue eyes and always-smiling mouth, hair spilling into his face as he looks down into Eddie's eyes.

Eddie reaches out and pushes Richie's glasses back up his nose. Richie grins at him, wrinkling his nose up, and Eddie abruptly thinks,  _ Will my baby do that?,  _ and his heart jumps into his throat.

"Can— Let's go inside," Eddie says. Richie just nods, squeezing Eddie's elbows before he throws an arm around his shoulders to lead him back into their house.  _ Their  _ house, that they  _ own. _

Eddie sits down heavily on the sofa, letting Richie follow his lead of his own volition. He does, because of  _ course  _ he does, parking himself down right next to Eddie and taking Eddie's left hand between both of his own, playing with his fingers. He's so much bigger than Eddie, and, right now, it's giving him such a warm, protected feeling that he's not ready to start examining.

"I have to tell you something," Eddie says. Richie nods, the blood starting to drain from his face. He keeps it together, though. He doesn't push, doesn't panic. Just waits. Eddie nods to himself, looking down at his hand between Richie's, dwarfed by him. With his other hand, he reaches into his pocket and wraps his fingers around the paper towels.

"Got a surprise?" Richie asks. He sounds a little strangled, but he's got a smile on his face for Eddie when they look at each other again. Eddie has to steel himself for a second before he actually pulls the paper towels out. "Oh. Eds, you shouldn't have. My cold's already gone."

"Unwrap it," Eddie tells him, hands shaking so bad that it's shaking the bundle in his hand. Richie takes it from him, holding it without moving for a moment. "Richie, I've been— I've been freaking out so I went to CVS but I didn't really think— Well, I guess I did sort of think, because otherwise I wouldn't have gone, but I just— I went right into the—" Eddie exhales, then motions towards Richie's hands. "Jesus fuck, just open it, God."

Richie leans in and cups Eddie's face in one hand, his thumb rubbing a circle into the hinge of his jaw before he kisses his cheek. When he draws back, Eddie's pulse starts racing again, his heart pounding thickly against his ribs. He wrapped it in too many fucking layers, so it takes a minute for Richie to unravel it all, but when he gets the test at the center, he just looks down at it. For a long,  _ long  _ moment, he just  _ stares,  _ down at the test in the nest of CVS bathroom paper towels, and the word  _ PREGNANT  _ across the tiny screen.

After the longest stretch of silence Eddie thinks there's ever been between the two of them, Richie asks, "How are you feeling?"

Eddie frowns, slightly, as Richie lifts his head and makes eye contact with him. His eyes are brimming with tears already; Eddie wants to reach out to him, but he's got his own arms wrapped around himself and he's  _ scared. _ Instead, he just says, "What, like— How am I  _ feeling?" _

"Yeah, Eds," Richie says, smiling a little. "When I asked  _ how are you feeling,  _ I did  _ shockingly  _ mean to ask how you're feeling."

Eddie can't help but scowl at him, but he's simultaneously so fucking grateful for Richie being quick and easygoing, for diffusing the tension so fast. He huffs slightly, then drops his face into his hands and scrubs at it roughly. "I'm— Fuck, I think I want this but I'm so fucking freaked out by the whole concept and just so fucking— And I mean so,  _ so  _ fucking blindsided, I just—" Eddie stops, exhales. "I'm feeling a lot of things at once. Just, like— Confused and scared and bad but also good because it's something— I think it's something I want, but I don't— What does that  _ mean,  _ you know? And I— That's the thing, I  _ don't  _ know. I don't know. I saw the test and I freaked out and I drove home and now I'm here, I've barely— I haven't thought about anything." Eddie looks up, feeling wild, and says, "I don't know. I don't know how I'm feeling."

"That's okay," Richie says. "I meant physically, anyways. Not that I don't appreciate the emotional pie chart."

"You jackass," Eddie replies, smiling. Richie cracks a grin and sets the test and paper towels aside on the coffee table. Eddie wrinkles his nose, but then Richie is laying his hand on Eddie's cheek, turning his face towards him so they're looking at each other again.

"It's anything  _ you  _ want," Richie says earnestly. Eddie trusts him when he says that, knows him well enough to believe him. "We can do whatever you want. If you don't want to, we won't. Simple as that, no questions asked, big guy, I swear. I'm all in on  _ you." _

Eddie nods. He wants to drop his head and break their eye contact, but he can't with Richie still holding him up like this. Instead, he closes his eyes and turns his face into Richie's palm.

"I'm going to go insane," Eddie says, matter-of-factly, because it  _ is  _ a matter of fact. "I'm going to feel— so fucking out of control. And weird. And angry, and— and  _ weird—  _ And sometimes I'll just be— I won't know why we did it, but I—" He exhales roughly, then gathers himself, because he wants to say this correctly. "But, for some reason, I kind of… I want to do this. Is that insane? Is that absolutely— Fuck, that's  _ insane,  _ I don't know what I'm—"

"Eddie," Richie cuts him off. "It's not insane.  _ You're  _ not insane. You can feel conflicting emotions, it doesn't mean those feelings aren't all like, real feelings. This is super conflicting, dude. I get it. But we'll do whatever you want, I mean it."

Eddie stares at him for another beat. His hand is huge and warm, where it's pressed into Eddie's face, all along the side from temple to chin. Richie looks nothing less than genuine. It makes Eddie more certain.

"No, I'm sure," Eddie says. "I want it. Them. I want them. Can we— I mean, I'm not—  _ Fuck,"  _ he says, emphatically, before managing, "This shit fucking sucks."

"Correct," Richie tells him. There's a wide grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, threatening to break open at any second. "But, look at it this way. I'm just  _ so  _ virile that I just—"

"Shut up," Eddie hotly interrupts him. The grin finally splits Richie's face.

"You really wanna do this?" Richie asks. Eddie nods, then drops his head into his hands and groans.

“Fucking— Yeah, I guess so,” he says, and then Richie’s dragging him across the sofa by the shoulders and hugging him hard, a tighter hold than Eddie’s ever felt. It’s disrupted when Richie hiccups, and Eddie draws back to realize he’s started actively crying. “Jesus Christ, Rich.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Richie says hurriedly. He wipes at his face. “I love you, though.”

"I love you, too," Eddie tells him, because it's true. If he didn't love Richie as much as he does, he couldn't do this; if he didn't know he has someone who genuinely and truly loves him unconditionally, who can drag him through the worst of this shit when he can't do it on his own—

Eddie doesn't really want to think about it yet. He figures he's freaked out enough about this today and that he wants to feel how Richie looks, buoyant and still surprised, happiness shining on his face like a sunrise.

He pulls Richie in to kiss him; his crying slows down, and he inhales before he kisses back to catch his breath, but then he's  _ there.  _ Eddie sighs as Richie draws him backwards, stretching out on his back and letting Eddie straddle his hips for a moment before ducking down to kiss him again.

"Shit," Richie says, when Eddie sits up again. He sniffles, then presses his hands into his eyes again.

"What now?" Eddie asks. He's trying for  _ annoyed,  _ but his tone keeps landing on  _ fond. _

"I'm just really in love with you and I'm really happy right now and I'm really excited so there's a lot of like," Richie motions around his chest with one hand, making a jerky circular motion,  _ "feelings,  _ really  _ strong _ feelings, and I'm feeling them all at once and it's just overloading my brain and I can't stop  _ crying,  _ fucking  _ shit—" _

Eddie swings his leg up and over Richie so he can settle along his side instead, tucked between him and the back of the sofa. He rests his head on Richie's shoulder. After a beat, Richie pulls his hands from his face again and wriggles one arm so it's under Eddie, his fingers lifting the hem of his shirt so he can press his palm flat to the skin of Eddie's back.

"I love you," Richie says again. "That's really all. I love you so much my brain's gonna explode from it, Eds, I swear."

"It better not, because I can't do this alone," Eddie tells him. Richie reaches up with the hand not rubbing little circles into the small of his back; he cups Eddie's chin and draws him closer to kiss him loudly on the temple.

"Eds, you could  _ definitely  _ do this alone, but you're never gonna have to," Richie says. Eddie tips his head back and up to frown at him, but it just makes Richie laugh before he says, "Well, it's  _ true.  _ You're gonna be a thousand times better than me at this, I know it."

"I keep thinking about how much better _you're_ gonna be at this than _me,"_ Eddie tells him honestly. Richie's face crumples again. "Oh, you've got to be kidding m—"

"I'm allowed!" Richie exclaims tearfully. Eddie scoots up a little bit to kiss him on the cheek, then the chin, then the lips. Richie huffs a wet laugh before smiling into the kiss and pulling back.

"I love you, too," Eddie tells him. "In case you didn't know."

Richie leans over the edge of the sofa briefly and comes back up with Eddie's test. He waves it at him before saying, "I know, I have  _ evidence,"  _ and Eddie has to pinch the sensitive inner skin of his upper arm to get the stupid thing back.


	2. google search: how to convince my boyfriend that i can still go on runs without him when i'm only six weeks pregnant and he can't walk two steps without tripping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"No,_ it’s not a race. You’re supposed to keep your pace as best you can.”
> 
> “So I should run next to you?” Richie asks. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him.
> 
> “If you think you _can,”_ Eddie tells him. Richie snorts, but Eddie just rolls his eyes, cracks his neck, and starts running.
> 
> Distantly, behind him, he hears Richie mutter, “Oh, _shit."_

Eddie’s tired a lot, now, but it’s hard for him to sleep for long stretches at a time. He wakes up to darkness in their bedroom and blinks, trying to get his eyes to focus in the pitch-black as they quickly adjust. He’s curled up around Richie, but he pulls away to stretch. His stomach churns and his chest feels tight, tugging when he stretches his arms above his head. As he moves, Richie lifts his head, his eyes still closed as he rubs at his face with one hand.

“Eddie?” Richie asks, bleary and mashed into one syllable instead of two. Eddie sits up fully and leans over Richie to stroke his hair back from his face.

“Go back to sleep,” Eddie tells him quietly. He makes a soft noise that sounds like a protest, but Eddie pushes him back towards the pillows and he goes easily. He doesn’t get up again as Eddie softly pads out of their bedroom in his bare feet and quietly pushes the door to their master bathroom shut behind himself.

It’s only been a week and a half since he realized he was pregnant, and it has been a stupid fucking  _ miserable  _ week and a half. He’s been exhausted, mostly, and has a headache about ninety-five percent of the time, and he’s nauseous pretty much every time he inhales incorrectly. It’s a fucking shitshow when he’s spent so many years honing his body to be the exact way he wants it; he’s spent so  _ long  _ making sure it’s precisely under his control, and now it feels like it’s completely betraying him.

Eddie flicks the light on and gingerly lifts both toilet seats before carefully kneeling on the tile in front of the toilet bowl. He’s done this enough times over the last couple of weeks that it’s as familiar as it is painful and infuriating; all he has to do is shift himself up and drop his head before he’s already starting to vomit.

For all his preparation, he’s not quiet, and he hears Richie’s feet hit the floor in the other room. The door clicks open just as he’s sitting back on his heels. Richie sits down cross-legged beside him, silently handing him a wad of tissues.

“Thanks,” Eddie says. He wipes at his mouth with two of the tissues and flushes before leaning back into Richie’s chest. Richie strokes over his chest, down his stomach, back up again.

“No sweaty, Spaghetti,” Richie mumbles into his hair. He kisses the crown of his head. “Sorry you’re feeling shitty.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him. Richie keeps absently rubbing his hand up under Eddie’s shirt, over his skin. “Distract me.”

“Mm,” Richie murmurs. He yawns, then says, “Did you know the baby’s about the size of a sweet pea right now? Like the baby in Popeye.”

Eddie snorts a half-laugh. “Where’d you read that?”

“I’ve been reading a bunch of books I got at the library,” Richie tells him. Eddie’s pretty sure he would’ve made a joke instead of actually telling him, if he was more awake, but he’s mostly asleep as it is. “Their heart is starting to beat, too. Like, they’re actually— They’ve got a  _ heartbeat  _ now, Eds. You  _ grew  _ that.” Richie nuzzles into Eddie’s sleep-mussed hair and says, “Good work,  _ very _ impressive, I can’t do that even a little bit.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says, smiling a little. He turns a bit to lean up and press his face into Richie’s throat, but the movement jostles him too much; he shoots back up to his knees over the toilet and throws up again. Richie’s hand slides around to Eddie's back, rubbing in slow circles under his sleep shirt over his warm skin.

“Even  _ this _ is way more impressive than I could do it,” Richie comments, as Eddie is actively vomiting. “You’re  _ very  _ neat. I’m an incredibly messy puker.”

Eddie sits back and lets Richie clean his face off with a tissue before he replies, “Yeah, I know. You’re a fucking disaster.”

“Aw, thanks, babe,” Richie says, sounding marginally more awake as he leans up to flush the toilet again so Eddie doesn’t have to.

_ “You’re _ the fucking reason I’m like this,” Eddie snaps without heat. Richie keeps rubbing his back, his face buried in Eddie’s hair.

“I know,” Richie says quietly. “I’m so sorry, Eds.”

Eddie pauses for a second, waiting for another wave of nausea to pass before he says, “Don’t be sorry. Why the fuck’re you sorry?”

“I’m getting mixed signals here, big guy,” Richie tells him. “Is it my fault? Or is it a blessing? Because I’m—”

Eddie cuts him off by shoving him away and vomiting again. Once he’s done, though, he feels monumentally better, and collapses back into Richie’s lap. Richie grabs a washcloth off the shelves beside them and stretches up to wet it in the sink; Eddie lets himself be moved around until Richie’s folding the washcloth over and putting it gently on the back of his neck.

“That sure shut me up,” Richie comments, once Eddie’s breathing has evened out again. He huffs a laugh, turning his face into Richie’s chest. Richie ruffles his hair and asks, “Ready to go back to bed?”

“What time is it?” Eddie asks. Richie leans back to open the bathroom door again and look at their clock on the wall.

“It’s just after four,” Richie says. Eddie stretches, then moves to stand. “Whoa, whoa, where the fuck are  _ you _ going?”

“I’m gonna brush my teeth and go for a run,” Eddie tells him. He gets to his feet, and Richie stands up beside him. Eddie notices for the first time that he hasn’t got his glasses on, so he must not be able to see fucking  _ anything. _

“Should we really be running after we empty out our bodies like that?” Richie asks. Eddie flushes the toilet and turns on their sink, frowning at Richie in their reflections in the mirror. Not that Richie can see him do it.

“What’d you mean,  _ we?”  _ Eddie demands.

“I meant more the royal  _ we,  _ but, actually,” Richie says, adopting a casual tone that means he’s not being casual at all, “Eds, now that you mention, I— I actually would like to start going on runs.”

Eddie pulls his toothbrush out of his mouth to say, “You fucking do  _ not.” _

“Hey, I fucking  _ do,” _ Richie argues. “You’re always telling me I should take better care of my body.”

“And you’ve chosen four in the morning on a Thursday to listen to me?” Eddie asks. He spits into the sink and rinses his mouth with mouthwash before turning to Richie. “I’m going to keep doing the things I normally do, Richie.”

“It’s okay if you have to, like… adapt the routine, though,” Richie says hesitantly. Eddie twists the knob a little too forcefully to shut the water off. “Just, like. For now. You know, I was Googling, and there’s these exercise and jogs you can do when—”

“Oh, suddenly you’re a fucking doctor?” Eddie snaps. This time, he’s feeling real flares of heat. “You looked on Google and you know everything now?”

Richie frowns, then rubs at his face with his hand again. “No, I just— I’m worried about—”

“I can take care of myself,” Eddie tells him. His heart is  _ pounding  _ now, already incensed, hair-trigger temper made worse by how tired and emotional he already is. “You don’t need to worry about me, Jesus Christ, I’m a fucking grown adult man.”

“I always worry about you,” Richie says. “I know you can handle yourself, it’s just, like— You know. A part of my brain’s always thinking about you, making sure you’re okay. I don’t worry that you can’t take care of yourself, I just worry that something’ll happen  _ to  _ you—”

“Then you  _ don’t _ trust me to take care of myself,” Eddie cuts him off. “Richie, I’ve been running since I was fucking  _ thirteen.  _ I’m going to keep going on runs.”

“Can I still come with you?” Richie asks. Eddie feels like he’s fuming, his skin sizzling, but he just wants to start running  _ now, _ so he nods jerkily.

“Fine, whatever, run with me,” Eddie says. “Kill yourself running when you’ve done it twice in your life, see if I fucking care.”

Richie nods, rubbing at the back of his neck as he goes to leave the bathroom. He nearly bumps into the doorjamb, blind as a bat, and Eddie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. His first headache of the day is already throbbing in his back teeth and radiating up through his jaw and his skull.

“Richie, stop,” Eddie says, before Richie can actually leave the room. He sighs again, then says, “Fine.  _ Fine,  _ just— Stop acting like a lost puppy, you’re fucking six-four.”

“I’ll get my sneakers,” Richie tells him, jogging out of the room. Eddie takes a second to try and pull himself together so he feels less scattered. When he goes out into their bedroom, Richie’s tugged on a pair of Eddie’s running shorts. They fit him horribly; they’re far too tight  _ everywhere,  _ digging into his thighs and clinging to his ass. Eddie can see pretty much all of his cock through his shorts.

“Jesus Christ, Rich,” Eddie says. He tries to fight back the laugh bubbling up, because he still wants to be mad, but then Richie tries to bend over to tie his sneakers and he can’t actually make it down because of how much the shorts are restricting him. Eddie can’t help but start laughing, burying his face in his hands. “Just— You’re going to rip them,  _ stop.” _

“You don’t think I look good?” Richie asks. He tries to get to his shoes again and can’t manage it.  _ “Fuck,  _ how do you move around in these?”

“First of all, I wear my own fucking size,” Eddie tells him. He starts laughing all over again when Richie makes a face at him. “Jesus, just— Get over here, c’mon.”

Richie does as he’s told, and Eddie takes a knee to tie his sneakers for him. Richie digs his fingers into Eddie’s hair, scratching his scalp.

“I’m sorry,” Richie says. Eddie doesn’t acknowledge the apology, because he’s still upset enough under his laughter not to want to talk about it, but he does lightly smack Richie’s outer thigh before he stands up.

“Let me get dressed,” Eddie tells him. It takes him no time at all, because he does it so often; his hair won’t stay out of his face, and he knows he needs a haircut, but it’s four-thirty in the morning. He just puts a baseball cap on and tugs it down, then up again, shoving all his hair up into it.

His running routine is easy. He does it nearly every single day, and he has for years.  _ He’s _ an experienced runner; Richie, not so much. Eddie knows this because he knows Richie; they've lived together for years, they know pretty much everything the other one does or does not do. It makes sense, then, that Richie has to watch Eddie closely while he does his stretches, or else he’d have no idea what he’s supposed to be doing.

As it is, Richie’s stretches don’t seem like they actually do much. It’s more likely that he’ll get a stitch in his side and give up than it is that he’ll actually pull a muscle, though, so Eddie leaves him to it. Hopefully he’ll just realize how stupid he’s being, turn around, and walk home.

“So, what, we race now?” Richie asks, while Eddie’s trying to twist and crack his hip. He motions Richie over, and Richie comes, letting Eddie draw his leg up and plant his heel on Richie’s shoulder. He holds Eddie’s calf for him as he stretches forwards until his hip pops, and he sighs, pressing his forehead to his knee.

“Not gonna be able to do this soon,” Eddie comments. Richie lightly scratches behind his knee before helping him put his leg back down. “And  _ no,  _ it’s not a race. You’re supposed to keep your pace as best you can.”

“So I should run next to you?” Richie asks. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him.

“If you think you  _ can,”  _ Eddie tells him. Richie snorts, but Eddie just rolls his eyes, cracks his neck, and starts running.

Distantly, behind him, he hears Richie mutter, “Oh,  _ shit,”  _ but then he hears his footsteps hitting the pavement of the street behind him, so he just keeps going. Richie matches his pace after a few minutes; Eddie credits his longer legs, because he falls back again shortly after that. Then, he catches up again, keeps pace for a little while longer; then, he falls back again.

“Fucking— Fucking  _ shit, _ you’re fast,” Richie says from right behind him. Eddie can feel a stitch in his own side, but he’s not about to break pace before Richie does, no matter what.

“If you can’t keep up, you can always just go for a jog or a walk instead,” Eddie says over his shoulder to Richie.

“Ha!” Richie laughs once. He’s clearly trying to be loud and funny, but he’s already breathless. “I don’t— I don’t need to take a— Take a walk, I’m—  _ Fuck.” _

Eddie hears his footsteps slow down again, and he laughs, turning to look back over his shoulder. Sure enough, Richie’s bent over double in the street, hands on his knees, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. Eddie slows down and loops back to him.

“You okay?” Eddie asks. Richie nods jerkily. “See, this is maybe why you shouldn’t—”

Richie shakes his head frantically, reaching up to hold his hand up to Eddie, palm-forwards. Eddie can’t even begin to figure out what he’s trying to mime before Richie’s stumbling to the sidewalk and vomiting into the grass between there and the road.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Rich,” Eddie says, all in a rush. He gets close enough to put his hand on Richie’s back, but then Richie’s palm is flat against his chest and he’s pushing him away. “Let me fucking—”

“Go away,” Richie manages to say before he turns and throws up again. Eddie feels his own stomach twist, and he realizes too late what Richie was trying to do for him before he turns and vomits into the street.

“Fuck,” Eddie says, when he catches his breath. Richie sits down heavily on the sidewalk, then sprawls out on his back, looking up at the pale-pink sky as the sun comes up.

“Sorry,” Richie tells him. Eddie sits next to Richie’s head on the sidewalk and strokes his hair back from his sweaty face.

“For what?” Eddie asks.

“Making you sick,” Richie says. “Being an embarrassment. Acting too worried—”

“You didn’t do any of that,” Eddie tells him. He shifts to pull Richie’s head into his lap. “I shouldn’t’ve let you run with me, I knew you couldn’t handle it.”

Richie scoffs. “I can handle it, I ju—”

“Don’t even try,” Eddie cuts him off. Richie huffs a small laugh, turning his face into the warm skin of Eddie’s inner thigh. He keeps stroking Richie’s hair back from his face, over and over, nice and slow. “I know I should start adapting my routine. I’m just— I haven’t actually gotten myself to do it yet.”

“Why?” Richie asks. He doesn’t sound angry, or upset. Just curious. Eddie loves him for it.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. Richie waits. “I don’t know, maybe I just— I just know that once I actually do it, I’m going to have to  _ keep  _ doing it for seven months, you know? And I’m doing it because my body is going to change, because I don’t have control over it, but when it  _ stops,  _ when I go back to my old routine, it’ll be because we have a fucking  _ baby,  _ and I just— What if I can’t do my routine anymore? And I can’t run ever again, and I end up trapping myself in the house with the baby and I start acting just like my mom—”

“Okay, whoa, slow down,” Richie interrupts him, before sitting up and turning to look at Eddie properly. “I was just gonna listen and then discuss but I’m gonna nip that one right in the bud, Eds, you are  _ not  _ your mom. You’re  _ not.” _

“What if I end up like her?” Eddie asks him. He knows Richie won’t placate him, knows he’ll give the question real thought and give Eddie an honest answer, so he waits for Richie to think before speaking.

“You’re too different,” Richie finally tells him. “You can never end up like her because you’re not like her to start with. Before you say anything,” Richie says, because Eddie  _ had _ been about to say something, “I know you think you’re alike because you both have tempers and you’re both overprotective or  _ whatever.  _ There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things, Eds. It’s what you do that matters.”

“And what am I doing  _ so  _ differently?” Eddie asks.

“Eds,” Richie says, looking firm and serious. “Our baby is the size of a  _ sweet pea  _ and you’re worried you’re ruining their life. You’re willing to look at yourself and figure out what you can do better. You’re nothing like her because of how fucking much you actually  _ care,  _ Eds. You’re self-aware and brilliant and— and so smart, I don’t know, you’re so loving and I love that about you. I love you.”

The backs of Eddie’s eyes only burn for a second before he’s already starting to cry. Richie huffs a laugh, pulling Eddie in to hug tight, right there on the sidewalk. Eddie’s grateful they went out so early, if only for the fact that there’s nobody else out here to trip over them or see him sob like a kid.

“I gotcha,” Richie tells him. “I promise I’ll worry less about what you’re doing, okay? Obviously I trust you. I know you’re always gonna do what’s best for our baby and for you, I know that. I just— I want to make sure, you know? Just because I want to take care of you.”

Eddie nods, then lifts his head to look up into Richie’s eyes. “It’s fucking  _ hard _ taking care of something the size of a sweet pea.”

“And yet I’ve been doing it for nearly thirty years,” Richie sighs, faux-put-upon. Eddie shoves at his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Eddie says quietly. He rests his head back against Richie’s shoulder and lets himself close his eyes; Richie runs his hand absently up and down Eddie’s back. “I’m sorry I’m freaking out so much.”

“Fuck, Eddie, I’m impressed by how fucking well you’re handling this,” Richie tells him. “If this is you freaking out, man, you deserve a fucking  _ medal.  _ I’m one  _ hundred  _ percent serious—”

“You’re such an idiot,” Eddie says warmly. Richie presses a loud kiss to his hair before stretching and groaning. “I’m going to figure out a new exercise routine.”

“Yeah?” Richie asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie repeats. “I already knew I needed to, I just— I don’t know. Guess I needed the kick in the ass.”

“Always good to do a role-reversal of the ass-kickings,” Richie tells him. Eddie flicks his temple before standing up again.

“Let’s go home,” Eddie says. He offers Richie a hand, and Richie takes it, letting Eddie help him to his feet. He can barely move in Eddie’s running shorts as it is; Eddie can’t help but snort a laugh when Richie’s finally standing and he can see the shorts again.

“What’s so funny?” Richie demands, grinning. Eddie shakes his head.

“You look like a fucking idiot,” Eddie tells him sharply, smiling at him as he does. Richie shrugs, then turns and crouches down a little bit. “What the fuck are you doing? You look like you’re going to—”

“Get on,” Richie instructs him. Eddie laughs again. “No, I’m serious, get on, I’m gonna carry you home.”

Eddie’s about to tell him to fuck off, but his body does ache and his stomach still hurts and his head is pounding; he’s been trying to get better about asking for help when he needs it, and sometimes even just because he wants it. After a moment of hesitation, Eddie climbs up onto Richie’s back.

Richie hooks his hands under Eddie’s thighs, holding him tight as Eddie loops his arms around his neck and buries his face in Richie’s throat. He yawns; Richie reaches up and takes off his cap.

“Can’t see a fucking thing with your hat in my face,” Richie tells him. He sticks it on his own head before readjusting his grip on Eddie with both hands again.

Luckily, they hadn’t made it too far from their house, so the walk isn’t that long or even all that bad. Eddie just listens to Richie hum as he walks, soothed by the repetitive motion of his body as he’s carried by him. The early morning air is still damp and crisp, and it feels nice against his hot skin. Richie’s thumbs keep rubbing small circles into the firm flesh of his thighs. It’s all calming.

“We’re home, sleepyhead,” Richie tells him, once they’re back at their house. He’s somehow managed to unlock the front door without jostling Eddie too much, and he’s just kicking it shut behind him as Eddie lifts his head and blinks his eyes. He’s only mildly surprised to see their living room. Mostly since he’s still half-asleep.

“I’m gonna go back to bed,” Eddie says tiredly. Richie  _ tsks  _ at him and carries him to their master bathroom instead, sitting him down on the closed toilet seat lid.

“I’m gonna wash you down first,” Richie tells him.

Eddie nods, letting his head fall into his palm, his elbow on his knee, as he tries to keep awake. He feels like he had been wide awake ten minutes ago, and now he can barely keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t really care. Even though the other Losers don’t know exactly why yet, Mike knows he’s been sick, and he’s already told Eddie multiple times that he can come in late or not at all if he’s not feeling well. He knows there’s time to sleep if he needs it.

“Earth to Eddie,” Richie says softly. Eddie blinks his eyes open again. “Can I help you get cleaned up real quick, Eds? In and out. You’ll sleep much better.”

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. His voice is more breath than anything. Richie pulls his shirt off over his head, then helps him stand; Eddie holds tight to his shoulders as he pulls off his shorts, his underwear, his sneakers, his socks. He helps him step into the half-filled bathtub once he’s done.

“There you go, big guy,” Richie says. Eddie huffs, smiling. He can hear the smile in Richie’s voice, too, when he says, “I’m gonna scrub you down and then we’ll get you right back in bed.”

“I have to—”

_ “And  _ I’ll call Mike, tell him you’re gonna be late today,” Richie cuts him off. Eddie nods, letting his head hang forwards as he yawns and Richie grabs the washcloth he’d had out earlier off the edge of the tub. He wets it in the hot water before running it over Eddie’s back.

“Thanks,” Eddie says. He feels a little more clear-headed, now that he’s no longer being carried and still actively talking. “Sorry about this.”

“You never have to apologize to me,” Richie tells him. Eddie snorts. “Well, not about this. When you’re being a dick, yes. When you’re tired and sick and frustrated because you’re growing an entire  _ person? _ No, you don’t have to be sorry for that, what am I, a monster?”

“You’re a monstrous size,” Eddie grumbles at him. Richie kisses him on the cheek; Eddie smiles even wider, turning his head and leaning in until Richie kisses him properly, too.

Eddie’s too warm and sleepy and content to spiral too hard about his body right now, but he tenses up a little bit as Richie’s scrubbing him down and shifts him slightly so he can wash his chest and his stomach. Richie leans back again, then softly asks, “This okay, Eds?”

Eddie nods once. After a beat, he manages, “Yeah, sorry, just— It’s just new. I’m still adjusting. You can’t even really— There’s not even really anything  _ there.” _

“There is, though,” Richie reminds him. “And it’s inside  _ you.  _ Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have feelings about it. You’re allowed to have as many feelings as you’d like, in fact— I officially allow it.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks.

“By royal decree,” Richie assures him. Eddie laughs again. After a beat, he takes Richie’s hand in his and tugs it back down under the water. Richie hesitates, for a moment, before he lightly presses his fingertips to Eddie’s flat stomach. He’s still just as muscular as he has been for years, but Richie still exhales shakily like he’s just been handed the fucking baby for the first time.

Eddie watches Richie’s face instead of his hand. He feels instead of sees his palm press flat against his skin. He sees instead Richie’s whole face light up, the grin that spreads across his face, the flush that makes him go all pink as his eyes flick up to Eddie’s.

“You’re super buff,” Richie says, choked. Eddie laughs as Richie says, “You’re so hot, I just want to  _ cry—” _

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie tells him. Richie leans in to kiss the grin off his face.

“Ready for bed?” Richie asks. Eddie nods, and so Richie helps him stand, towel off, and brush his teeth before leading him back to their bedroom. After a moment, Richie realizes he needs Eddie’s help to peel out of his shorts; Eddie demands compensation for his assistance in the form of several photos of him  _ in  _ the shorts before he’s out of them.

Eddie steals Richie’s clothes, while Richie’s brushing his teeth and washing the sweat off his face in the bathroom sink. He tugs on the biggest shirt of Richie’s that he can find, tucking his face into it for a moment to breathe in the smell. It’s weirdly  _ deeply  _ comforting in a way that’s sort of new; the way Richie smells usually feels more warmly familiar than anything else.

Richie owns multiple pairs of sweatpants with drawstrings exclusively  _ because  _ he knows Eddie’s going to borrow them periodically; Eddie finds a green pair and tugs them on before climbing into their bed. When Richie comes out, he smiles at him, all fresh and scrubbed pink. He hops onto the bed beside him, the mattress bouncing Eddie a little bit as he lands.

“Look at  _ you,”  _ Richie murmurs, burying his face in Eddie’s throat, wrapping around him and tugging him under the covers. Eddie laughs, lets Richie manhandle him until they’re curled up tightly around and over each other. When Eddie tucks his face into Richie’s chest, he sighs, content. “Get some sleep.”

“Then what?” Eddie asks.

“I don’t know,” Richie tells him. “Whatever you want.”

Eddie smiles, but he can’t come up with an answer for Richie before he’s falling asleep again.

He’s still awake enough, though, to hear Richie as he says quietly, “Love you, Eds.” There’s another beat, and then he whispers, “Love you, too, sweet pea,” and Eddie smiles again before he falls asleep.


	3. google search: ways to make my boyfriend feel good about his body without embarrassing his sensitive emotions which i love very much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No name is gonna sound good with ours, Eds, I hate to break it to you,” Richie replies. “Any direction we go, we’re fucked. My name, your name. Hyphenated in either direction. Just a mess of consonants.”
> 
> “Our names aren’t that bad,” Eddie says. “I’ve picked one name to go with _Kaspbrak,_ I can do it again."

Richie’s sitting on their closed toilet lid, his chin in his hands as he scrolls absently through Twitter, reading off random names as he goes past them. Eddie’s been showering for the better part of twenty minutes, but he has a careful routine that he goes through exactly the same beat-for-beat _every_ time he showers, so it’s not a surprise. He can see the vague shape of Richie through their shower curtains, so he sees him stretch his arms above his head in shadow.

“What about Gina?” he asks.

“Absolutely not,” Eddie replies, tipping his head back under the stream of water.

“David.”

“No.”

“Kevin?”

 _“No,”_ Eddie tells him firmly. “Richie, these names sound _horrible_ with ours.”

“No name is gonna sound good with ours, Eds, I hate to break it to you,” Richie replies. “Any direction we go, we’re fucked. My name, your name. Hyphenated in either direction. Just a mess of consonants.”

“Our names aren’t that bad,” Eddie says. “I’ve picked one name to go with _Kaspbrak,_ I can do it again.”

“Uhh, technically, _I_ picked Edward,” Richie reminds him. “Remember, I was flipping through that book and saw it?”

“That literally doesn’t count, that was, like, two weeks before I picked it and it’s not why, I just thought of it,” Eddie argues with him.

“Yeah, because _I_ put it in your head,” Richie counters. “Check and mate, buddy.”

 _“Regardless,”_ Eddie says pointedly. “We need a name that’ll sound okay with ours.”

Richie’s quiet for a suspicious amount of time. Eddie doesn’t see his silhouette move, so he’s definitely still there, but he stays silent.

“What’re you thinking about?” Eddie asks.

“Nothing,” Richie answers, too quickly.

 _“What’re you thinking about?”_ Eddie asks again, more firmly this time, because they have to communicate, goddamnit. Richie hesitates, then sighs.

“I— I don’t know how to tell you without sounding like an asshole,” Richie admits. Eddie rinses the last of the conditioner out of his hair and shakes water off his head.

“Never stopped you before,” Eddie replies. It covers up the way his heart races and his hands shake when he scrubs his face under the spray.

Richie huffs a laugh. After a beat, he says, “I was thinking about us getting married, maybe.”

They’re both silent then. Eddie washes the exfoliant off his face and then stands under the hot water, motionless, for a long minute.

“I’m sorry,” Richie says. “I’m— I _told_ you there wasn’t a way to say it without me sounding like an asshole. I don’t— I don’t know. I’ve wanted to marry you since I was a little kid, and I know we’ve talked about it a couple of times, but we’ve never really— never really had a reason to, you know. So I didn’t know how to ask. And this seemed like a good reason, maybe. But now I just sound like a dick who wants to, like, own you and our kid, or, _whatever,_ so— So, never mind. Sorry.”

Eddie takes in everything he’s said, then exhales, slowly.

“You _want_ to get married?” Eddie asks, finally. The few times they’ve brought it up, Richie’s only ever discussed it as a concept. It’s never seemed like he wanted it all that much, so Eddie stopped bringing it up quite so often.

“Of course I _want_ to get married, Eds,” Richie tells him. “I used to write _Richie Kaspbrak and Eddie Tozier forever_ in my diaries. I was _obsessed_ with marrying you, Eds.”

Eddie’s hands are still shaking, but for a different reason altogether now. He shuts the water off and pulls the curtain back to actually look at Richie. He’s dripping water, as the two of them stare at each other. He shivers, after a moment.

“C’mere,” Richie says, taking one of Eddie’s towels off the rack beside them and wrapping him up in it. Eddie leans his forehead into Richie’s shoulder, just for a moment.

“I thought you didn’t want to get married,” Eddie manages to say. “You never talk about it.”

“Because _you_ don’t want to get married,” Richie replies. Eddie shakes his head, then pulls back, dragging the towel up to ferociously rub the water out of his hair. “You’ve _never_ wanted to get married.”

“Every time we talked about it, you acted so casual,” Eddie comments. His voice echoes a little bit, muffled by the towel and rattling around their bathroom’s tiles.

“Because I didn’t think you wanted it,” Richie says. He laughs, then rubs at his face when he pulls away. Eddie watches him, the towel slung across his shoulders. He’s got tears in his eyes when he says, _“Fuck,_ I’m just— I always say you should use your words more, and I’m such a fucking _hypocrite,_ because I should’ve just _told you_ I wanted to marry you.”

“So, you do?” Eddie asks. He wants to be certain, because he’s long since decided that he and Richie would be boyfriends for their whole lives and that that was fine. His stupid fucking emotions are on a hair trigger, and he catapults from angry to confused before launching into being so overwhelmed with happiness that tears start spilling down his cheeks.

“Holy shit, Eds, it’s okay,” Richie says. He helps Eddie step over the edge of the bathtub and onto the rug he’s already standing on. Eddie’s still dripping wet and damp, but Richie pulls him in for a hug anyways, the towel around them both; the water soaks through Richie’s clothes, but he doesn’t pull away.

Eddie sniffles, then gets himself together, swallowing and inhaling until he’s got himself together. Richie just rubs his back until he’s calm again.

“Of course I want to marry you,” Richie assures him. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? You’re one _hundred_ percent marriage material, Eds, my man. Plus, gay marriage is _super_ legal now, which is wasn’t when we turned eighteen and I wanted to marry you immediately.”

Eddie smiles up at him, swallowed up by Richie’s kiss when it comes. He clings to him, for a moment, before letting him go. Richie wraps the towel around Eddie tighter, now, rubbing him dry vigorously, laughing the whole while he does it. Eddie shakes his hair out like Richie always does after his showers when he’s done, even though he keeps it so much shorter that it doesn’t really do much of anything to spray Richie with water.

“I’m not just doing this because of the baby, by the way,” Richie says, when they’re both dressed and Eddie’s in the bathroom mirror trying to get his hair to lie flat. “Asking you to marry me, I mean.”

“I know,” Eddie says, but he’s still fairly sure Richie wouldn’t have brought it up if it hadn’t been for the baby. Which is _fine._

“You _don’t_ know,” Richie argues. He comes up behind Eddie in the mirror, wrapping his arms around him and tucking his face into his neck. He tips his chin up, after a moment, to make eye contact with Eddie in their reflections. “I can tell by your tone and the face you’re making, you don’t believe me.” Richie pauses for a moment, then says, “Can I show you something to make you believe me?”

Eddie watches his own brow furrow, a crease appearing between his eyebrows exactly where Richie likes to push his fingertip when Eddie’s frustrated with him. He looks down to Richie’s face and asks, suspiciously, “What is it?”

“Stay here,” Richie tells him. He leaves Eddie standing there in the bathroom, hair damp and springing up into curls as it dries. With a sigh, he goes back to combing it flat; in their bedroom, he can hear Richie rattling around in one of their dresser drawers. _“Aha.”_

“Got your surprise?” Eddie calls. Richie appears back in the bathroom doorway with a grin. He sets a small velvet ring box on the counter beside the sink, and Eddie stares at it, his heart skipping into triple-time. “Jesus fucking Christ, you didn’t.”

“I got that when we were… twenty-two, I think,” Richie tells him. He flicks the box open, when it becomes clear Eddie’s not going to do it. “I’ve moved it to two different houses and I bring it on trips when I have to go without you so you won’t find it while I’m gone.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Eddie asks, choked. “Why didn’t you ask me, Richie?”

“Well, one, you could’ve asked me, too, buddy,” Richie reminds him. Eddie sets his comb down to lift the box up, examining the ring up close. It’s simple, a glossy-black metal frame with a shining, dark wooden band around the center. Eddie slips it free of the velvet to hold it up. “Two, like I said, I thought you didn’t wanna get married. I figured I’d just hold onto it until either you found it or I gave up and just asked.”

“Is this you asking?” Eddie asks. Richie scoffs, taking the ring back and slipping it back into place in the box.

“It is _not,”_ Richie tells him, firmly. There’s a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth. It makes Eddie smile, too, when Richie says, “When I ask you, Eddie— Oh, you just better _watch out,_ because I am gonna propose to you so _fucking_ hard.”

“Not too hard,” Eddie says. “I’m in a delicate condition.”

Richie laughs loudly, unexpected and startled out of him. He snaps the ring box shut, slipping it in his pocket before he slinks up behind Eddie again. This time, he takes him by the hips, humming slightly as he runs his fingertips around the edges of Eddie’s belt.

“Honey, there’s _nothing_ delicate about you,” Richie murmurs. He unbuckles his belt, then unthreads it, tugging it free from the loops and letting it hang open. When he untucks Eddie’s button-up dress shirt and his undershirt from his work pants, Eddie can’t help but shiver. “Why the fuck’re you all dressed up today? I thought Mike was in the front office today.”

“I’m stuck on front office until I’m not sick anymore,” Eddie tells him. He’s still just as frustrated about it as he had been when Mike had suggested-slash-told Eddie that it’d be better if he stuck to the front office for a little while the day before.

“Because of your delicate condition?” Richie asks. Eddie groans loudly; Richie snorts a laugh in response. _“You_ said it, not me.”

“Yes, because I’ve been incredibly fucking sick because of the baby _you_ accidentally put in me,” Eddie reminds him. “So, really, this is all your fucking fault. I should honestly sue you for this— _Jesus Christ.”_

“Yeah, I thought so,” Richie says smugly. His fingers search deeper, parting Eddie’s folds as he dips further into him, fingertips curling up to press lightly against his entrance. Eddie inhales sharply, watching Richie’s face go pink in the mirror as he looks down, eyes focused on Eddie as he circles his clit with his thumb. After a beat, Eddie’s hands shoot up, gripping the edge of the counter so tightly that his knuckles go white around both hands.

 _“Fuck,_ Richie,” Eddie manages to get out. His breathing stutters as he feels flames licking through his insides, from his core up and out, until he moans loudly around the crest of a sensation. Richie tucks his face into Eddie’s throat, kissing along the line of it until he reaches his shoulder. Eddie can only watch in the mirror as Richie bites into his skin there.

“I love you so much,” Richie murmurs. He smiles, then looks up to make eye contact with Eddie in the mirror when he says, “Eds, I’ve wanted to marry you forever. I would’ve happily never married you if that’s what you wanted, and I’ll marry you today if that’s what you want, because I love _you.”_

Eddie shivers, shaking apart under Richie’s hands, falling apart from his words. The hand that’s not slipped into Eddie’s boxer-briefs pushes his shirts up, gliding up the strong planes of his chest until he’s found a nipple. Eddie whimpers, watching Richie work him to pieces in the mirror’s reflection. Richie takes that as encouragement, apparently, and smiles before tweaking his nipple and sliding his hand back down.

When Richie’s hand slips past his belly, it stills, for a moment, before it keeps going. Eddie can feel his hair stand on end, but he’d actually meant to bring this up with Richie earlier before all the marriage talk came up, so. The timing’s not the best, but it’s not the worst.

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him. He reaches up and takes Richie’s hand by the wrist, guiding it back up to the strong muscles of his abdomen. “It’s only okay for _you,_ but it’s okay.”

Richie huffs a small laugh. After a beat of hesitation, his fingers press into Eddie’s belly, at the soft skin over hard muscle. There’s less give than there should be, and a swell that wasn’t there before, slight but present; Eddie noticed it the second it showed up, because he knows his body _exactly,_ but he’s been shying away from showing it to Richie. He can’t help but feel like it looks too feminine, when he observes his own reflection.

Like this, though. He didn’t shave today, and neither did Richie; he’s in his work suit, dressed for the front office, all stubble and masculine clothes, and he doesn’t _feel_ feminine. He feels masculine, and— and like he’s doing something strong, and powerful, and _good._ He feels _good,_ being with Richie like this, in a way he wasn’t sure he’d feel at all about his body during all this.

“Fuck, I love you,” Richie says, sounding like he’s on the edge of tears. Eddie tips his head sideways into Richie’s, closing his eyes as Richie’s other hand gets to moving again, working Eddie back up fast until he has heat coiling deep in his abdomen. Eddie clings to him, turning himself slightly to bury his face in Richie’s hair and his throat as Richie fingers him through his orgasm. He slips his fingers inside Eddie as he comes down, his entrance relaxing as his climax slips away, because he knows Eddie likes how it feels; Eddie’s stupid fucking hormones are so fucked up that the consideration of something like that makes him tear up again.

“Fucking _shit,”_ Eddie spits. He pulls his hands free from their tangle with Richie’s to pull his jeans apart, reaching in to draw his cock out. Richie groans _loud,_ once Eddie’s hands hit his skin; it doesn’t take him long to pull away so Eddie can drop to his knees on the bathroom rug. He knows exactly how clean it is, because he’s the one who cleaned it two days ago — but, regardless, he wants to do this while he still _can._

“Eds, you’re gonna—”

“Shh,” Eddie tells him. “I’ll tell Mike I wasn’t feeling well, I can be a couple minutes late.”

The way Richie looks down at him is nothing short of dumbfounded, astonished that Eddie’s saying and doing the things he’s saying and doing. For Eddie, though, he feels like his skin is on _fire,_ and if Richie doesn’t put his cock in his mouth _right now,_ he’s gonna fucking freak out.

He doesn’t tell Richie any of that yet. Instead, he tugs Richie’s jeans and underwear out of the way and lifts himself up on his knees until he’s level with his cock, slipping his mouth around it hot and tight, faster than usual. He knows exactly how much he can take at once, so he does, and Richie groans his name loudly.

“Holy fuck, Eds,” Richie says, once he catches his breath. Eddie wraps one hand around the base of Richie’s cock and slips his other hand down to finger himself; he whimpers, once, involuntarily. Whatever the sensation does for Richie around his cock, it makes him moan again, broken and breathless. “Eds, fuck, I’m really close, you gotta—”

Eddie waits until the absolute last moment to pull off. Once he does, Richie looks right down at him, the two of them make eye contact, and then he comes, painting Eddie’s face. Eddie slams his eyes shut just in time, but not his mouth, and he feels some of it hit his tongue. On impulse, he swallows, and he hears Richie groan, long and low above him.

“Fucking shit on a _shingle,_ I’m gonna ask you to marry me every _fucking day,”_ Richie says, hoarse and weak. Eddie presses his forehead into Richie’s thigh, uncaring of the cum he’s smearing across the denim as he grinds down on his own palm and fingers. “Oh, fuck, Eds, here, lemme—”

Which is how Eddie ends up on his back, half-on his bathroom floor and half-on his bedroom floor, getting eaten out by Richie at eight in the morning until he comes for the second time in twenty minutes. When he can breathe again, Richie lifts himself up and over him, kissing him over and over on the cheek before he straddles his thighs.

“Can I?” Richie asks, reaching for Eddie’s shirts again. He pushes the hems up a little bit, then says, “See again? Can I— Do you mind?”

“No, yeah, go for it,” Eddie tells him. He draws the shirts up for him, so Richie can focus on the placement of his hands, since it apparently needs a lot of attention and care. Richie gingerly sets his palms down flat against the slight swell of Eddie’s abdomen. For a beat, he doesn’t do or say anything. Then, when Eddie props himself up on his elbows, Richie starts to cry, with no preamble or warning. “Oh, fuck—”

“No, no, I’m good,” Richie says. “It just got very real very fast, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, _now_ it’s real?” Eddie asks, smiling even though he feels shaky himself, watching Richie swipe tears off his face with his dick still out.

“That’s our baby,” Richie tells him, like Eddie didn’t know that. He looks up at Eddie, delighted, then back down. He pushes his hands back into the same spot before saying, “Hi, sweet pea.”

“Are they still the size of a sweet pea?” Eddie asks. Richie shakes his head.

“No,” Richie tells him, quiet. “They’re the size of a cherry now. Like— A little maraschino cherry, but a cherry.”

“I love you,” Eddie says, because he feels it like a swell in his chest. Richie presses a kiss between his hands to Eddie’s abdomen before lifting his head and scooting up to kiss Eddie himself on the lips, slow, soft. He opens his mouth towards the end, licks lazily into Eddie’s, then pulls back.

“Love you, too, Spaghetti Man,” Richie says. He smacks a loud kiss on Eddie’s cheek before pulling away again to shove his dick back in his underwear and zip his jeans back up. “Alright, up and at ‘em, Mike’s gonna see through your booty-call morning sickness excuses sooner or later—”

“You’re such a _dick,”_ Eddie tells him, even though he loves him more than anything in the world. Richie tucks Eddie’s shirts back in for him, straightens out his collar, then hauls him to his feet.

“I am a Dick,” Richie reminds him. “And I love you anyways, even though you always forget my name.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, and kisses him to do it himself.


	4. google search: how do i tell my friends i got knocked up now that it's getting hard to hide it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie spends good chunks of time standing in front of the mirror in his and Richie's bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little bit shorter today! Just feeling some feelings. Enjoy!

Eddie spends good chunks of time standing in front of the mirror in his and Richie's bedroom. He tracks the minute changes of his body day-by-day; Richie's been roped in to taking a side picture of him on his phone every day so he can see the changes visually when he scrolls through the album in his phone gallery. It gives him at least an  _ ounce  _ of control over the whole situation.

It's in the twelfth week of his pregnancy that he actually notes the first real change that he can directly attribute to the baby. He twists in the mirror, watching his abdomen as he does. He's not actually sure how long he spends doing that before he exhales slowly. His reflection makes eye contact with him, briefly, before his gaze drops back down.

Tentatively, Eddie turns to the left to look at himself from the side, in profile. He forces himself to start at his face, to look at his short hair and the rough stubble on his jaw that he hasn't shaved off yet, at the strong line of his shoulders, the flat planes of his chest. He loops around to his ankles, up his calves, his muscular legs and strong thighs until he has to meet in the middle.

He touches the tips of his middle and index fingers to the hollow beneath his throat, then slowly traces them down, slower,  _ slower,  _ until they slide over his abs. Down further, his fingers glide up over the slight swell of his belly, and he exhales shakily.

Eddie looks away from the mirror and down; it seems even more obvious, from his vantage point, and it makes him a little dizzy. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply before sitting at the foot of their bed. For a brief moment, he does nothing. Then, he looks down again.

He lifts his hand, then stops, dropping it. After a beat, he does it again, watching like he's a spectator as his own hand gingerly touches his skin. He spreads his fingers over the swell, then flattens his palm to it, letting himself feel what he's seeing, grounding it deeply in his brain.

There's not much to feel. He doesn't even know how big the baby is — he's sure Richie could tell him, but Richie's in the shower — but he knows they're not significantly large. Seeing the physical change, though, it  _ feels  _ real. It's not just getting headaches, throwing up, and feeling lost all the time. There's an actual  _ reason  _ for this. He's not sick, or dramatic, or overreacting. He's not wrong. He's not lying.

He's really doing this.

"Richie!" Eddie calls out, before he can think better of it. He hears the water squeak off; it's only a few more seconds before Richie appears in their bedroom, wiping water off of his face and still completely naked. "Jesus fuck—"

"Are you okay?" Richie asks, loud. Eddie laughs when Richie tries to shake water out of his hair and only succeeds in bumping into their dresser. "Who the fuck put this h— Are you moving furniture around while I'm showering?"

"No, I'm not fucking pranking you," Eddie tells him. "Sorry, I, uhh— I wasn't thinking, I just— How big is the baby?"

Richie's brow furrows and he rubs a fist into one eye as he says, "Uhh— Fuck, what is this, tw… twelve? Twelve weeks?"

"Yeah," Eddie says. He looks away from Richie to drop his attention back down, his hand still obscuring his belly from view.

"They're as big as a plum," Richie tells him. He makes a circle with his hands and holds it up for Eddie to see. "About this big. Why? Did you— Is this a baby-size-related emergency?"

"I can see them," Eddie says. There's a beat where neither of them says anything, but Richie looks impossibly confused. "Like, I'm— I'm starting to show. You can see the baby—"

"Ahh, okay, good," Richie says. He ducks back into the bathroom; when he reemerges, his dripping hair is toweled dry, said towel is wrapped around his waist, and he's got his glasses back on.

"I'm sorry," Eddie says, because he feels like a fucking dumbass now. Richie shushes him before pushing him over at the foot of the bed, stealing the spot beside him. One curl of hair is still dripping water onto Eddie's bare shoulder. The droplets roll down his back.

"Don't be sorry," Richie says. He scoffs, then says, "I've screamed for you for  _ way  _ worse, from  _ all sorts  _ of different spots around the house. I'll take this a million times if it means you and the baby are fine."

Eddie nods, then slowly lifts his hand again. He feels a little bit like someone who has smushed a bug under a book and has to check to see if it's really still under there or not. He doesn't run the bug analogy by Richie, though.

"See?" Eddie says. Richie squints, then shifts up to get a different angle.

"Oh, yeah," he says. His hands don't move as he carefully asks, "Can— Is it— I just, I know it's like, uhh… Can I touch? Totally,  _ totally  _ cool if not—"

"Of course you can," Eddie cuts him off. Neither of them move, though, so Eddie makes the first one, reaching for Richie's wrist so he can pull his hand over. He settles Richie's hand there like he had with his own. "Feel it?"

"Feel it?" Richie echoes. He huffs a wet laugh. "Eddie, I love it more than I love anything in this world except fucking  _ you,  _ man. I didn't— Holy  _ shit." _

"You okay?" Eddie asks. Richie looks a little pale when he nods jerkily.

"I just—" Richie laughs again before he says, "That's— That's our  _ baby.  _ Eds, I am feeling fucking  _ everything  _ right now, holy fucking  _ shit,  _ it feels like my— my brain and my chest and my stomach are just going to fucking just—  _ explode." _

"I get it," Eddie says, aiming for dry and landing at honest. Richie's hand slides up to place one fingertip under his chin and tip it up so he can kiss him.

"Are you okay?" Richie asks. "Tell me what you're feeling. And be honest."

"I'm feeling kind of terrified," Eddie tells him, because it's true. "And— And I'm feeling like it's real. And I'm not just imagining things. It feels— I'm feeling—" Eddie looks down again, runs his fingertips over the swell. His baby is in there. He and Richie  _ made _ that— on accident, but they did— and, in six months, th— It's going to be  _ life.  _ An entire living child, like in movies and on playgrounds, that is growing in him and will come out of him and will be raised by him.

And by Richie, who pulls Eddie's attention back up and looks at him like he hung the fucking moon before kissing him again. He pulls away only to stand and crouch down beside Eddie before nudging the swell with his knuckles.

"Hey, bucko," Richie says, and Eddie's ribcage splinters to shreds watching him. "I'm really excited to meet you. Oh, this— This is your dad, sorry, I should've— Hi, it's me, your dad—"

"Jesus fucking Christ, they're not your audience," Eddie interrupts him. Richie looks up at him, smiling, one eyebrow lifted.

"That's where you're wrong," Richie tells him. "They're gonna be my  _ best  _ audience." He taps Eddie's side with a single fingertip before he says,  _ "Anyways,  _ I wanted to ask a pretty big favor of you, kiddo."

"You're already asking things from them?" Eddie asks. Richie sticks his tongue out at him.

"Just be nice to your dad," Richie says, ignoring Eddie's comment. "Not me, obviously, the other one. He's working really hard for you, so. Doesn't hurt to return the favor."

"Hey, they didn't ask to be born," Eddie reminds him. Richie laughs when he stands back up and cups Eddie's face in his hands. His cheeks are a little squished when he says, "They don't owe me anything."

"You're gonna be an amazing fucking dad," Richie says, apparently out of nowhere. "You already fucking  _ are,  _ Eds, look at you. So smart." He kisses Eddie on the lips, the nose, and then the forehead.  _ "Fuck,  _ I love you." He ruffles Eddie's hair, then says, "You're so greasy, go clean yourself and then I'll take your picture."

"Thanks," Eddie grumbles. He lightly shoves at Richie's chest, playful when he pushes him back. Richie growls at him and catches him around the waist, burying his face in Eddie's throat and kissing across his shoulder while Eddie squirms.

"You stay still," Richie says right in his ear. "You're gonna freak our baby out, they can open their eyelids by now."

Eddie stops fighting Richie's hold and asks, "They grew fucking  _ eyelids?" _

Richie picks up one of Eddie's hands and tangles their fingers together. He lifts their joined hands and wiggles his fingers. "They're developing their hands and feet, too. Fingers and toes. They're starting to be able to wiggle 'em like this."

"Probably not quite like this," Eddie says, as Richie pulls their hands up to press a loud, smacking kiss to the back of Eddie's.

"I'm proud of you," Richie murmurs softly, right in Eddie's ear. Eddie smiles, just a little, just to himself. He tips his head back against Richie's shoulder and lets himself be held for a moment. "You're doing a great job growing that baby, baby. I love you so much."

"Don't call me  _ baby,  _ you fucking weirdo," Eddie snaps. He turns and catches Richie's face between his hands to kiss him again. "Thank you."

"Thank  _ you,"  _ Richie tells him. He spins Eddie by the shoulders and pushes him towards the bathroom with a smack on the ass. "Now,  _ go,  _ or you'll be late and Mike will be even more suspicious than he  _ definitely  _ already is."

Eddie pauses in the doorway to the master bathroom, his hand loosely curled around the doorframe. He thinks for a second about Mike, and how, if he takes his shirt off at the garage, his body's noticeably changed now. Mike would probably comment to Bill, privately, and they'd speculate, and they'd theorize, and they'd talk to the others, and, before they know it, Ben's calling and asking why he's the last to know they're having a baby when they haven't told anybody at all.

"We should start telling people," Eddie says, even though it's arguably the most vulnerable thing he's ever said in his fucking life. "It's just— They're going to find out soon anyways. I'd rather tell them myself."

Richie nods, his face flushing pink. The blush spreads down his chest as he says, "Yeah, I— That sounds great. Want me to— I can text the group chat, see if they wanna do dinner, or— or something."

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. After a beat, he says, "No, I'm not totally sure yet. I want to think about when, and where, and what— what we're going to say, I guess."

"Sounds good," Richie says, choked. Eddie stares hard at him for another moment before Richie explodes with, "I'm so fucking excited, I love you so much—"

_ "Of  _ course," Eddie says, but he laughs when Richie surges forward to tug him into his arms and kiss him again, damp skin running trails of water all over Eddie's bare skin. Richie tips his chin up to kiss him again.

"I think I still have shampoo in my hair," Richie murmurs against Eddie's lips, which fully isn't what Eddie expected to hear, but it  _ is  _ the reason Richie follows him into the shower.


	5. google search: can you feel a baby when it's growing inside of you or is that sort of like waiting to feel grass grow or paint dry?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie isn’t particularly crafty by nature.

Eddie isn’t particularly crafty by nature. In all fairness, neither is Richie, but what Richie lacks in crafting he makes up for in theatrics.

All this to say, when Eddie says he’d maybe like to do something nice to tell the Losers they’re having a baby, Richie goes straight to Pinterest and comes up with his fortune cookie idea. The entire concept is that they’ll make their own fortune cookies for everybody, complete with a fortune inside telling them they’re going to be an uncle or an aunt (on a case-by-case basis). Eddie’s not actually sure what the fortunes say, since Richie made them all himself, along with the actual cookies themselves. Lucky for them, Richie actually knows how to cook.

“This is  _ not  _ fucking easy,” Richie says, quickly trying to fold his homemade fortunes into the middle of their soft, half-baked cookie batter. Eddie watches from the island in their kitchen, legs hooked through the bar on his stool, chin in his hands as Richie buzzes around the room. He always feels like the eye of a hurricane, like this. It’s a nice feeling when it’s with Richie.

“Then just do better at it,” Eddie tells him, smiling. Richie shoots him a parody of a glare before he winks at him and gets back to work. Eddie keeps picking at his edamame, popping another couple of beans into his mouth right from the pod. “I appreciate this, though. Fuck knows I can’t cook, I would’ve just— I don’t know. If it was just me, I would’ve just said it out loud, I guess. I’m not creative like you.”

“I got this off a mommy blog,” Richie reminds him. He stops beside Eddie, mouth open. Eddie places a bean on his tongue.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not creative,” Eddie says. Richie folds the next fortune cookie quickly before setting it in the tin to cool. Finally, Eddie hops down from the stool to investigate. “They look great, Rich. Good job.”

“Please, I’m gonna cream my pants,” Richie replies evenly. He folds the next cookie and sets it in the tin, right under Eddie’s nose. When Eddie looks up at him, he gets a wink in return.

“Is it stupid to be nervous?” Eddie asks. Richie leans over to kiss his temple. “No, I’m serious. Is this stupid? I don’t— I don’t know. I feel stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Richie tells him. He sticks his tongue out, just a little bit, as he concentrates on folding the next cookie. When it’s in the tin, he continues, “We’re not telling our parents, we’re  _ not  _ telling my sister. This is our equivalent of telling our families, it makes sense to be nervous, man. Plus, y’know, we’re having the first kids out of anyone.”

“Don’t say  _ kids,”  _ Eddie warns him.

“Kid,” Richie amends. “We’re having the first one, so. We’re the ones setting the precedent. It’s natural to feel a little freaked out  _ regardless,  _ Eds, you got a  _ baby  _ in you the size of a  _ peach.”  _ Richie makes a fist, then says, “A  _ peach,  _ Eds.”

“I thought last week was a peach?” Eddie asks. Richie furrows his brow, turning back to his tray to keep folding fortunes into cookies.

“What day is it?” he asks. Eddie smiles.

“Sunday,” he says.

“Ahh.” Richie sets the next cookie in the tin. “Then, our child is a peach  _ no more.  _ They’re now about the size of a pear.”

Eddie returns back to the island, just briefly, to grab an unripe pear out of the bowl on the countertop. He leans back against the counter beside Richie and his tin of cooling fortune cookies as he holds the pear up to the light.

“What’s going through your brain?” Richie asks, eyes trained down on his hands as he works. Eddie cups his hands together and holds the pear in them.

“Thinking about how small the baby is,” Eddie tells him. “And how big. Simultaneously.”

“Fair,” Richie replies. “They’re growing inside of you.” He pauses for a second, then asks, “Does it feel weird? Can you, like— feel it?”

“Can I feel them  _ growing?”  _ Eddie asks. Richie’s cheeks go pink in the moment before he glances up at Eddie.

“Is that a stupid question?” Richie asks, instead of answering or clarifying. “I tried to Google it, but I can’t find an answer, so. Thought I’d ask. But if it’s stupid— I mean, of course it’s stupid, you can’t—”

“It’s not stupid,” Eddie cuts him off. “I don’t know what I’m doing any more than you do, Richie.”

Richie smiles, then drops his gaze back down to his hands again, stilled on his cookies. His smile widens a bit, seemingly for no reason. Eddie’s tempted to ask what he’s thinking about, but Richie looks back up at him before he can, ready to speak.

“Can you feel them inside you yet?” Richie asks. Eddie shakes his head, and Richie nods, glancing away. “The book said it would be around sixteen weeks to start, that’s still a week off. And most times, when it’s the first pregnancy, it won’t happen until, like, week twenty-five—”

“You’re reading a lot,” Eddie comments. Richie falls quiet, folding the last fortune cookie and setting it down in the tin. After a long pause, he sighs.

“I don’t think I’m doing enough,” Richie says, more to the tray on the stovetop than to Eddie. “I mean, you’re— You’re  _ making  _ the baby. What the fuck am I doing, baking cookies? I’m not doing anything and I—”

“Hey,” Eddie cuts him off. Richie shakes his head again, looking away. He’s still got his  _ I ♥ rubbing meat  _ apron on, which makes him seem a little younger, somehow. More afraid. Eddie reaches out and takes Richie’s chin in his hand, pulling his face back around until he’s angled down to make eye contact with Eddie again.

“I’m not,” Richie says again.

“You are,” Eddie tells him. “Richie, if there was a medically possible way for you to do this and I asked you to swap, you’d do it in a heartbeat. I know that.”

“I would,” Richie says quickly. “I know— I know you didn’t want this—”

“It’s not that I didn’t want it,” Eddie interrupts him. “I was afraid of it. But— Okay, I’m going to tell you something, but you  _ can’t  _ make fun of me.”

“Cross my heart,” Richie assures him. Eddie still hesitates, but then he steels himself.

“I think I’m afraid of everything,” Eddie admits. Richie, true to his word, doesn’t laugh or make fun of him at all. He just looks at him expectantly, still listening, waiting for him to continue. “And I— I think maybe I’m just afraid of things I haven’t done. And this— I don’t know. I was terrified of it, and I’m still— I’m still  _ so _ scared, because there’s a million things that could go wrong and I’m horrified by everything the books say but I can’t  _ not  _ read them, I need to know  _ everything,  _ but I also— It’s complicating my— How I look at myself, I guess, but I still—” Eddie exhales, fast and short, then says, “I’m glad I’m doing it. I don’t know if these are actual thoughts I’m having, or if it’s my hormones, but, right now, all I really want to do is fucking have this baby with you.”

Richie smiles down at his hands for a moment before he looks up at Eddie. His face is splotched pink and his eyes are wet, but Eddie doesn’t have a chance to ask what’s wrong before Richie’s tearfully saying, “I’m so glad, Eds.”

“Why?” Eddie asks without thinking.

“Because I thought you’d hate me for this,” Richie says, then starts crying in earnest. Eddie’s heart speeds up as he tugs Richie away from the oven, pulling him into an embrace. Richie folds right into him, burying his face in Eddie’s throat; Eddie just rubs his back, feeling like he missed a step as Richie clings to him like he’s drowning.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Eddie tells him. “Richie, I don’t hate you. I don’t think I could ever really hate you—”

Richie shakes his head, then makes to pull back, wiping at his eyes. He’s still visibly crying, but it seems important to him to speak, so Eddie just waits until he pulls himself together enough to say, all in a rush, “I’m so sorry I did this to you and I’m so sorry I’m so excited, Eddie, I’m  _ sorry—” _

“What— No, slow down,” Eddie cuts him off. Richie dissolves right back into him; Eddie wraps his arms around him, just holds him for a moment. The tears keep coming, hiccuping sobs that choke him when he tries to speak again. Eddie can feel the backs of his own eyes start to burn from it.

“I’m so sorry,” Richie repeats. “Eddie, I’m  _ really _ sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Eddie tells him. He reaches behind himself and finds the edge of the counter, then lowers himself and Richie down to the kitchen floor. Richie buries his face in Eddie’s throat again, clinging all along his side while Eddie tugs his legs in by the ankles to tangle up together. He kisses the top of Richie’s head. “You don’t have to be sorry, Rich, I promise. I’m not mad at you, I don’t hate you, I don’t know where you got the idea that I could  _ ever  _ hate you but I don’t, and especially not for this, Richie.” He cups Richie’s face in his hands and drags him up so they can look at each other. His face is still wet and splotched deep red. “You’re the only reason I’m getting through this in one piece. You’re the only reason any of this is worth it at  _ all,  _ Richie. And I—” His own voice breaks, and he shakes his head, looking away.  _ “Fuck,  _ you’re going to make  _ me  _ fucking cry—”

“I’m sorry,” Richie says again, but he’s smiling a little bit when Eddie looks back to him.

“It’s just the stupid— It’s the hormones,” Eddie reminds him sharply. Richie nods, wiping under one eye with the back of his hand, shoving his glasses out of place. Eddie reaches out and straightens them, then runs his thumbs under Richie’s eyes himself. “Don’t be sorry.”

“But—”

“I  _ said,”  _ Eddie says, “don’t be sorry.”

Richie smiles slightly again. “Okay. Sorry.”

Eddie gives him a warning look before continuing, “There’s nobody else I’d rather do this with. And there’s nobody else I  _ would  _ do this with. Richie, this is— I think this is the scariest fucking thing I’ve  _ ever  _ done.”

“Including Pennywise?” Richie asks. He’s not smiling when he asks that. Eddie nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Including that, even that.”

Richie nods, too. He looks away, for a moment, before he says, “I think so, too.”

Eddie pulls Richie in closer, kissing him on the cheek before letting Richie cling to him in a tight hug again. He keeps rubbing his back, even though Richie’s tears are slowing until they stop, now.

“Even though it’s scary,” Eddie says, quietly, “I’m so happy we’re doing it. Really. I’m— It’s terrifying and I’m really— I can’t really overstate how much this all freaks me out, I’m really close to losing my shit pretty much— pretty much all the time, really, but I—” Eddie shakes his head, then asks, “You know what I first thought, when I came home to tell you I was pregnant?”

“What?” Richie asks.  _ “‘Fuck, I hope it doesn’t look like that?’” _

“The opposite,” Eddie says, “actually.”

“What d’you mean?” Richie asks. His face is pink again when Eddie leans back to make eye contact.

“I was scared to tell you just because I— Once I said it, it was real,” Eddie says, which isn’t technically an answer, but  _ is  _ the beginning of one. “And I was taking a step back. Like, if I said it, it’d mean I wasn’t— Maybe I’m not enough of a—”

“You are,” Richie cuts him off, before he can say it. Eddie shakes his head.

“I know I am,” he says. “But, regardless, that was what I was thinking. On my way home. And then I actually saw you, and you asked me what was going on, and I just—” Eddie exhales shakily, feeling a couple of tears slip down his own face as he says, “I knew you’d do anything for me. And I’d do anything for you. And I know you see me, and I know you  _ know  _ me, in a way that— that sometimes, I don’t even think  _ I  _ know me.” Eddie tries to catch his breath, but all that happens is his voice breaks on the exhale. He barrels on anyways. “And I thought about what— what maybe—” He shakes his head, now, starting to  _ really  _ cry, and he says, “You did that thing where you smile and you push your glasses up and your nose does this— this thing and it— I thought the baby would look like you and I—”

“Okay, it’s okay,” Richie tells him, as Eddie works himself up until he’s hyperventilating. “Shh. Eds, I gotcha. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten you all—”

“No, no,” Eddie tells him. “I’m— I’m good, I’m—”

“Shh,” Richie shushes him again, softly, and Eddie curls up into his side, trying to even out his breaths and stop the tears. He listens to Richie’s heart, a thrumming under his ear until he starts to really calm down. It slows in fits and starts until it’s steady and even again. Eddie tries to keep his own breaths in pace with Richie’s, tries to keep his heart slowed down to the same speed. He doesn’t make it all the way, but he gets close.

“I’m okay,” Eddie says, softly, breaking the silence of the last few minutes. Richie kisses the top of his head. “I’m sorry, I just freaked out.”

“You’re okay,” Richie tells him. His voice is still quiet, too, when he says, “Thank you.”

Eddie nods, then turns his face into Richie’s chest instead of his ear. He presses his forehead right into the space at the hollow of Richie’s throat and doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just holds Richie tight, right there on the fucking floor. Richie holds him right back.

“What time is it?” Richie asks, after a bit. Eddie wipes his face off on Richie’s shirt, ignoring the disgruntled sound he makes, before he pulls his phone out to check.

“Fuck, it’s almost seven,” Eddie says. Richie drags himself to his feet, then offers Eddie a hand and hauls him up, too. “They’ll be here soon, I haven’t—”

“Go get ready,” Richie tells him. “I got this.”

“But you—”

“I  _ got this,  _ Eds,  _ go,”  _ Richie tells him. Eddie leaves Richie with the kitchen a mess and half-cooled fortune cookies in the tin and tears smeared all over his shirt.

* * *

Eddie comes back from his quick shower and redressing to find the kitchen clean, the fortune cookies in a bowl on the counter, and Richie standing at the stove again. This time, he’s pulling a dish out of the oven, gingerly setting it on the stove top to cool. Eddie waits until it’s out of his hands to speak.

“You look good,” Eddie says. He was right to wait, because Richie jumps before he turns to look at him, grinning.

“This old thing?” Richie asks, smoothing the front of his shirt with one oven-mitt-covered hand. It’s a nice shirt, and a new one, one Eddie picked out for him, light linen in pale yellows and greens. “I wear it when I don’t care—  _ Mm—” _

Eddie kisses him, then pulls away to say, “Thank  _ you.” _

Richie smiles a little. “Anytime, Eds.”

There’s another beat of silence before Richie sighs, then claps his oven-mitt hands together. Eddie pulls back, rubbing at the back of his neck once before shooting to the refrigerator just for something to do with his hands.

“How very  _ no homo  _ of you,” Richie comments. Eddie snorts a laugh as he pulls Richie’s jug of lemonade from the fridge.

“Tragically, we now have irrefutable homo evidence,” Eddie replies.

“You know, Homo Evidence isn’t really a bad name for a kid,” Richie says. Eddie flicks a couple droplets of condensation off the jug at him. Richie just laughs and insists, “I’m  _ serious!  _ Can’t ask for a better built-in conversation starter—”

“We’re not discussing this,” Eddie cuts him off. Their front doorbell rings, and Richie grins. “Literally saved by the bell. Go answer it.”

Richie snaps off a salute and says, “Yes, sir,” loudly and gruffly, before kissing Eddie on the cheek and nearly slipping in his socks on the tile when he runs out of the kitchen.

Eddie listens, waiting to see who’s shown up first. He hears the door click, hears Richie shout, “Hey, look who it is,” and then Mike’s loud laugh.

Now that Mike’s here, there’s no going back. Plus, Mike being here means Bill’s here, too. Usually, Stan and Patty show up  _ before  _ Mike and Bill, so that means they’re probably not far behind, and then Ben and Bev will be there, and they’re all going to look at Eddie and they’re going to be able to tell, they’ll be able to  _ know. _

Eddie panics, briefly. He’d gone for one of his own shirts, but now he feels painfully exposed in it, like the slight swell of his stomach is a fucking neon sign saying  _ look what I fucking did. _ In his haze of nervousness, he darts down the hall to their bedroom and snatches up one of Richie’s hoodies. He tugs it on over his shirt before running back down; he slips into the kitchen just when Richie comes from the other direction, sliding around the corner with Bill’s hand in his.

Richie raises one eyebrow, just a little, when he sees Eddie’s wardrobe change, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he says, “Look who’s here, Eds!”

“We invited them,” Eddie reminds him. He lets Bill hug him before Mike comes over and kisses him on the cheek.

“How’re you feeling?” Mike asks. Eddie shrugs, non-committal. Mike looks him over; his face scrunches up a little bit when his eyes land on the hem of the hoodie, falling at Eddie’s mid-thigh and clearly not his, but he doesn’t ask.

“I’m feeling okay today,” Eddie says, to pull Mike’s attention back up. His palms are starting to sweat with anxiety.

Mike just smiles at him. “That’s great! I’m so glad to—”

The doorbell rings again before they hear the front door open and Bev’s voice calls, “Stan rang the  _ bell,  _ can you  _ believe  _ he—”

“I  _ know!”  _ Mike exclaims. “Bill did the same thing, isn’t he weird—”

Eddie starts forgetting what they’re all doing there, in the face of the seven people he loves most in the world talking over each other and filling up his immediate space. He’s been so afraid of being with them lately, especially in the last few weeks. He feels like everything he’s thinking is written on his face; Richie’s always telling him how expressive he is.

Having everyone together again, though, and all together with  _ him,  _ in his home— He feels happy enough to cry, and now he knows that’s a very real possibility where he wasn’t much of a crier before, so he stops thinking too much about it.

Instead, he claps with everyone else when Richie unveils his chicken pot pie for them; he laughs when he gets a leaf of wet spinach smeared on his face by Richie while they’re eating; he enjoys his time with his friends— his family— and he forgets all about what the night’s for.

“So, what’re we doing here?” Bev asks, with all of her usual tact, clapping her hands together. She looks to Richie, but Richie looks to Eddie, which just makes  _ everyone  _ look to Eddie.

Eddie feels his whole face go hot, his blood buzzing through his veins like static. He clears his throat, just to get another second, then says, “Rich, would you—”

“Yup,” Richie says, and jumps up. He leaves them in the dining room, all still watching Eddie; Eddie doesn’t speak. He just waits the three seconds it takes Richie to come back with the bowl of fortune cookies.

“Oh, hey, cool, did you make these?” Mike asks. Ben leans up to take one from the bowl, but Richie smacks his hand away.

“I did,” Richie says.

“And this is why we’re here?” Bev asks.

“Are we taste-testing?” Bill asks.

“Is something written on the fortunes?” Stan asks, processing an actual thought before asking his question. Richie snaps the fingers of his free hand.

“Bingo,” he says. He sets the bowl down in the middle of the table, then fishes out Bev’s and Patty’s specific cookies, each marked with tiny folds Eddie hadn’t even seen Richie make on one end.

“Oh my God, are you getting married?” Bill asks excitedly. Patty shakes her cookie like the fortune is a present she can hear rattling around inside.

“Guess you’ll have to open ‘em up and see,” Richie says. He stops next to Eddie’s spot at the table, then pulls another fortune cookie out of the breast pocket on his shirt and says, “And one for you.”

Eddie feels his face get warm again when he asks, “When did you make— When—”

“Shush, just open them,” Richie says. Eddie hears other fortunes cracking open, and his heart rate increases tenfold, because there’s truly  _ no  _ going back now. Instead of looking up, Eddie focuses on his own cookie, cracking it in half and slipping his fortune out.

The fortune isn’t actually a fortune, but a long piece of thin paper folded twice. He can hear other people crinkling theirs, so he unfolds his own to see what Richie’s written inside.

There’s nothing written on the inside of the paper. Instead, Richie’s scanned, copied, and reprinted small, thin copies of their first ultrasound. Eddie remembers when they got this, the first time they’d gone in and seen the screen and been told  _ this is your baby, right here.  _ It doesn’t look like  _ anything,  _ and certainly not a baby. Eddie mostly had just stared at it while Richie cried. Still, though, it’s his first picture of his baby, and he spends more time looking at it than he thought he would. It’s familiar now, looking down on it copied onto the thin paper in his hands.

For a moment, nobody says anything. Even Eddie can only just stare down at the picture wordlessly for a long moment. At the bottom of his, Richie’s scrawled,  _ sorry you’re 2nd place now,  _ with a heart at the bottom beside a capital  _ R.  _ Eddie huffs a laugh, looking up at Richie and finding him already looking back.

“So’re you,” Eddie tells him. Richie smiles crookedly at him before Bev shoves him from his other side, nearly knocking him right out of his chair.

“You’ve gotta be  _ fucking  _ kidding me,” Bev exclaims, which is apparently the needle that pops the balloon, because it makes Bill  _ shout  _ before he jumps up from his chair.

“I am not going to be an uncle,” he says to Eddie. His face is all flushed, eyes wild, a grin on his face as he stands there, staring at him. “I am  _ not.  _ Am I? Am I actually—”

_ “Yes,”  _ Eddie cuts him off, because Bill’s clearly spiraling. He all but vaults himself around the table to get to Eddie, dragging him to his feet and into a tight hug. Eddie laughs, clinging tightly to him in return.

Now that they  _ know— _

Now that Mike is telling him he was onto his sick days—

Now that Bev is telling him how proud she is of him—

Now that Ben is saying how he wants to help design the nursery—

Now that Patty is saying how happy she is for them and how much she wants to help—

Now that Stan is hugging him and kissing him on the cheek—

Now that Bill can’t stop telling him how happy he is—

_ Now,  _ Eddie can finally breathe a little easier.

His heart’s not pounding as fast, his blood’s not racing through his veins anymore, his lungs don’t feel like they’re drying up to paper and falling apart behind his ribs. Nobody’s even looked at him sideways. Nobody thinks less of him for that, and he has to look at them  _ hard,  _ has to remind himself that they’re not just  _ people,  _ that they’re his friends, his  _ family.  _ They’re the people who look at him and see  _ him.  _ Just like with Richie.

“I love you guys so much,” Eddie tells them before his voice breaks again. Richie’s right beside him, so he hauls him in with an arm around his shoulder, pulling Eddie’s face into his chest. Eddie hides there, for a moment, before he sniffles and gathers himself. When he pulls back, he says, “I’m just— I’ve been really freaked out. I can’t— I want to just— Thank you guys.”

“We love you, too,” Bill says. Eddie feels that  _ deep  _ in his chest, deep in the place that always needs Bill’s validation. It makes him grin like a dumbass, but Bill grins right back. “How far along are you, when’s the due date?”

“If it’s not my birthday, I’ll never forgive you,” Bev hurries to tell them. Richie laughs.

“If it  _ is  _ my birthday, _I’ll_ never forgive you,” Stan adds. “That’s _my_ day.”

“They’re due September 9th,” Richie interrupts them all, before they can keep going. “They’re closest to Eddie’s birthday, actually.”

“And I’m not sharing,” Eddie says firmly. Richie laughs again and yanks Eddie in for a hug, kissing him on the forehead before tipping his face up to give him one proper kiss on the mouth.

“So, you’re— You’re what?” Ben asks.

“I’m  _ what?”  _ Eddie asks incredulously. “I’m  _ pregnant,  _ Ben, Jesus Christ, I thought that was fucking—”

_ “No,  _ no,” Ben cuts him off, blushing. “I meant how pregnant are you. Like— How far along are you—” He stops himself, then looks down to Bev. “Am I not allowed to ask this?”

“It’s the way you’re asking that’s scaring us,” Bev says, which just makes Richie laugh harder.

“I’m about fifteen weeks,” Eddie tells him. “If that’s what you’re looking for.”

“I think that was it,” Bev says. Ben’s too busy trying to pull himself back together.

“So, when, December?” Mike asks.

“Don’t try and figure out when we conceived the baby,” Eddie warns them. Richie’s already grabbing a notepad from the kitchen and slamming it down in front of Mike.

“Do the baby math, Mikey,” Richie tells him excitedly.

Eddie drops back into his chair and buries his face in his arms as Mike does the quick math. He pulls out his phone to consult some website before he says, “I think— the end of November? Very beginning of December.”

“Probably around November 27th,” Ben says, using the calculator on his phone. “Maybe 28th?”

“You’re all insane,” Eddie snaps at them without heat. Richie kisses the top of his head.

“They know we have sex,” Richie tells him. “You’re literally carrying the h—”

“Stop,” Eddie says urgently, and Richie laughs.

“Wasn’t that Thanksgiving?” Patty asks. Bev makes a retching sound that makes Eddie’s stomach actually turn.

“That  _ was  _ Thanksgiving,” Bill says, turning to Richie with a grin on his face that betrays the stern look he’s trying to give. “You were staying in  _ my  _ house. Have you no goddamn decency?”

_ “You’re _ the one who told me to express what I’m thankful for,” Richie shoots back. Eddie thumps him over his heart.

“Do you know what it is yet?” Ben asks.

“I don’t wanna speak for Eds, but _ I’m _ hoping for a baby,” Richie replies. Ben’s face goes red again.

“No, we don’t,” Eddie says, taking pity on him. “We’re scheduled to find out as soon as possible—”

“April 1st,” Richie interjects, with his photographic memory of Eddie’s calendar.

“—So I can start coming to terms with whatever it is as soon as I can,” Eddie finishes. Richie rests his chin on top of Eddie’s head.

“I’m hoping it’s triplets,” Richie says.

_ “Stop,”  _ Eddie says, horrified. Richie just grins. “Don’t speak that into existence—”

“Multiples run in my family,” Richie says. “Did you know my mom’s a twin?”

“Stop, shut up,” Eddie insists. Richie kisses his temple again before pulling back.

“How big’s the baby by now, then?” Patty asks, looking delighted.

“Picture, like, a pear, or an apple,” Richie says. He makes a fist, then says, “Or, like, an orange, almost. About that size.”

Mike makes a fist and looks down at it. He pales. There’s a beat of silence; then, Eddie says, “Fine, hold on—”

“Fine what?” Ben asks, as Eddie steps away from Richie to tug his hoodie off over his head. “Oh—”

“Aw, Eddie,” Bev says. She quiets when Eddie looks at her, but she smiles wider. It draws a smile to his face, too, without him even thinking about it. She holds a hand out, and he motions her over.

He’s always been close with Bev, so it’s nice that she’s the first one over to him. She hugs him, first, then pulls back to put her hand over his abdomen. His earlier terror surges, then leaks out of him, all at once. He feels both happy and exhausted when Bev huffs a small laugh.

“That’s your  _ baby,”  _ she says. “Jesus motherfucking Christ, what the  _ fuck.” _

_ “There  _ it is,” Richie says, to general laughter. Bev kisses Eddie on the cheek and lets Bill take over and do the same.

It’s strange, but it’s not, but it  _ is,  _ but it’s his  _ family,  _ but he’s  _ emotional—  _ In the end, he feels wrung out, and he leans into Richie more than he usually would by this point in the night. Richie just props him up, Eddie’s back to his chest, Richie’s arm hanging down over his shoulder, fingertips just brushing the slight swell of his belly. It’s casual and protective and warm, and Eddie leans into his hold.

“Hate to end the party early, but I’m pretty sure the baby’s sucking up all of Eds’ energy,” Richie says. Eddie grimaces slightly, but Richie just kisses the top of his head.

His friends are slow to leave, but they spend that time hugging him, kissing him, making him wild promises about what they’ll do with the kid someday. He soaks it all up, drinks it all in, and then, when they’re gone, he yawns.

“Big day,” Richie says.

He pulls Eddie into a gentle embrace, right behind their closed front door; Eddie buries his face in Richie’s soft chest and sighs. Richie’s fingers drift through his hair, slow and steady, at the back of his head.

“Wanna go to bed?” Richie asks. Eddie just nods.


	6. google search: how do i make sure my baby grows up without a concept of gender as society interprets it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he gets a call from the office on March 31st saying they need to reschedule, Eddie wants to scream, but instead he politely accepts and reschedules for April 15th. He then agonizes for another two weeks while Richie desperately tries to keep him entertained and busy so he doesn’t think about it.
> 
> He still thinks about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my lifeblood is this fic

On April 1st, Eddie is exactly eighteen weeks pregnant. His appointment with Dr. Abrams is at nine o’clock in the morning, on the dot, first appointment of the day. She knows he gets anxious real easily, so she always gives him the first slot so he can get it over with without dragging himself through the day under extreme duress.

When he gets a call from the office on March 31st saying they need to reschedule, Eddie wants to scream, but instead he politely accepts and reschedules for April 15th. He then agonizes for another two weeks while Richie desperately tries to keep him entertained and busy so he doesn’t think about it. He still thinks about it.

And so, on April  _ 15th,  _ Eddie is exactly twenty weeks pregnant. His appointment with Dr. Abrams is at nine o’clock in the morning, on the dot, first appointment of the day. Richie and Eddie are sitting in the parking lot outside the office by 8:15; the doors don’t actually open until 8:30, and they can’t check in until 8:45, but Eddie’s skin was crawling and he needed to  _ go,  _ so they  _ went. _

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Eddie says, staring down at his hands while Richie bangs out a beat on the steering wheel in time with the song on the radio. He looks over at Eddie, glasses slipping to the end of his nose. His hands pause in mid-air.

“…About?” Richie prompts, when Eddie doesn’t continue. He keeps staring down at his hands, twisting his watch around his wrist over and over. Richie’s hand slips into his vision and covers his hands with one of his own, stilling them. “Eds?”

“About the baby,” Eddie says. “And whatever it’s going to be, I don’t know what it’s going to  _ be,  _ Richie. How am I going to raise a baby?”

“Whoa, wait, what’s going on?” Richie asks. He fully turns in the driver’s seat to ask, “Are you nervous about if it’s a boy or a girl? Because I’ll make sure it won’t matter either way.”

“But it will for  _ other  _ people,” Eddie reminds him forcefully. Richie squeezes Eddie’s hands. “Everyone’s going to look at her and think,  _ there’s a little girl, and she’ll grow up and she’ll be a wife and a mom,  _ or— or we’ll have a boy and everyone will think, you know,  _ oop, there’s a little boy, he’s going to be such a ladykiller,  _ so— So, we can’t win! There’s no winning!”

Richie gathers Eddie’s hands up in both of his and brings them to his mouth, kissing his knuckles before he clutches them to his chest. His heart’s pounding away in there.

“Eds,” Richie says, voice firm, face serious. “No matter what our baby looks like, sounds like, acts like, no matter what— No matter  _ what,  _ if they’ve got a dick or not,  _ we  _ are going to be the one raising them. And that way we can make sure that when society tries to fuck them over, they’ll know in their heart and their smart little brains that they’re right and society’s wrong. And they’ll know they have two very cool dads to come home to who will remind them of that always.” Richie reaches out with one hand to stroke the pad of his thumb under Eddie’s eye, catching the tears there. Eddie hadn’t even realized he was crying. “You’re going to understand. We’ll be able to help them. You’re already amazing, Eds. There’s nothing to be scared of, not with this.”

Eddie nods, dropping his eyes again. Richie tips his chin up again.

“I love you,” Richie says. “And I believe in you.”

“Thank you,” Eddie tells him. Richie ducks his head down to kiss him softly before withdrawing. “You’re gonna be great, too, Rich. I know it.”

“Well, you need someone to look up to,” Richie says. Eddie pinches the back of his hand.

“I’m serious,” Eddie says. “Keep being serious for two more seconds. I want you to acknowledge that we’re going to do this together and we’re going to do a good job. Say it.”

“Twist my arm, Kaspbrak, fuck,” Richie tells him. “Fine, yes. We’re going to do a great job being dads to this kid, you especially and myself included.”

_ “Richie.” _

“I am  _ working on it,”  _ Richie tells him firmly, smiling. Eddie cups his jaw to guide him into another kiss before the alarm on his phone goes off.

Eddie feels a lot better going into the appointment with Dr. Abrams than he has in the last two weeks that he’s been stressed  _ thinking  _ about the appointment with Dr. Abrams. He still sits there bouncing his leg in the waiting room for twenty minutes until they get called in. Eddie doesn’t even care entirely when they take samples from him, draw blood from him, measure his amniotic fluid. He’s all but twitching.

“Alright, let’s see,” the ultrasound tech says. His name is Jeff; Eddie’s already forgotten his last name, and he only remembers his first name because Richie repeated it for him. Dr. Abrams is sitting in the corner, her physical examination of Eddie already over as they wait.

“Look at that,” Dr. Abrams says, standing to point. Jeff  _ hmms. _

“What’s that?” Eddie asks, heart pounding. “Is it bad?”

“Stay cool, dude,” Richie tells him, hand on his shoulder. He kisses him on the top of his head, squeezing his shoulder as he does. “We’re all good here, no assuming the worst.”

“Brain’s good, spine’s developing just right,” Jeff tells him. “You can see their abdomen here, see it?”

Jeff points. Eddie frowns, because he can’t really see it. Richie doesn’t make a sound, so he figures he doesn’t either.

“Here’s a leg,” Jeff continues. “And up here, see this? This is an arm.”

“They’ve got two, right?” Eddie asks. “Of each?”

“Yes, they’ve got two of each,” Jeff says patiently. Richie kisses the top of Eddie’s head again. “They’ve developed all four chambers of their heart. Good work, Eddie, they’re coming along perfectly. Tip-top shape.”

“Thank you,” Richie answers for him. Eddie keeps staring at the screen, at the shape of their arms, their legs. He can finally see their head, their  _ nose. _

“Look,” Eddie says. He sits forward and points, tracing along the smeared black ink of the ultrasound on the screen, right along their face. “They have my nose.”

“Thank fuck,” Richie comments. Dr. Abrams snorts. “What? He’s got a cute nose, look at him.”

“Did you want to know what you’re having?” Jeff asks. “The— sex of your baby, I meant.”

“Thank you, yeah,” Richie says. He looks down to Eddie again, squeezing his shoulder. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes,” Eddie says, without hesitation. “I want to know now, I want to start preparing now.”

Jeff nods and looks to Richie; whatever he does, Jeff turns back to the ultrasound and points. Eddie tries hard not to stare down at where the wand is digging into his belly. He just wants to focus on the baby right now.

“Congratulations, you’re having a boy,” Jeff says. Eddie’s chest seizes, and he abruptly doesn’t give a shit about whether or not the baby is a boy or a girl, or anything else about them except that they’re his fucking  _ baby. _

“Is he okay?” Eddie asks. “He’s healthy, right?”

“Absolutely,” Jeff says.

“One-hundred percent,” Dr. Abrams seconds him.

“Wow,” Richie says, choked. “Look at him, Eds, that’s our kid. Our baby, that’s our  _ son.” _

“Our son,” Eddie echoes. He looks down, finally, and traces his hand down the side of the swell of his belly, thinking about how their fucking  _ kid  _ is in there. It feels more real, all of a sudden, to think of him as  _ their son. _

“How’re you feeling?” Richie asks. Eddie shakes his head, looking back to the ultrasound on the screen.

“I’m good,” Eddie tells him. Richie ducks his head to kiss him on the temple.

The rest of their appointment is standard. Eddie pays close attention; Richie does, too. Or, as close as he can pay, anyways, when he’s clearly twitching with excitement and wanting to talk to Eddie.

When they’re back in the car, Eddie finally breathes, exhaling as he looks down at the printout he was given. Richie sits just as quietly in the driver’s seat, waiting.

“A boy,” Eddie eventually says.

“A  _ boy,”  _ Richie repeats, exhaling harshly. “A fucking  _ boy.  _ I was  _ so sure  _ we were going to have a girl, weren’t you? I had, like, a sixth sense.”

“Or you didn’t,” Eddie says, “because we’re having a boy.”

“We need to come up with names,” Richie says. “And start making a nursery and shit. You’re gonna have a  _ baby.” _

“No fucking shit,” Eddie tells him. After a beat, he pushes up the center console between them and folds himself into Richie’s side. Richie just strokes his back, rubbing up and down, over and over.

“He has a healthy heart,” Richie says into Eddie’s hair. “And a healthy brain, and a healthy spine, and healthy limbs. You made us a healthy baby, Eddie. A healthy son.  _ You  _ did that.”

Eddie nods, staring down at the ultrasound. He sniffles, just once, and gathers himself, exhaling slowly. Richie kisses the top of his head again.

“Do you wanna go out and get brunch?” Richie asks. “I won’t let you drink mimosas, but I won’t drink any, either. In solidarity.”

“That sounds good,” Eddie tells him. Richie still holds him for another long minute before letting him go to start the car again.

“Burger King brunch?” Richie suggests, and Eddie laughs.

“No,” he tells him. He tips his head back and lets his hand finally shift down, settling over his belly. Where his baby is. Where their son is. “Hey, how big is he now?”

“About the size of a banana,” Richie tells him. “Or a sweet potato.  _ Plus,  _ and they didn’t mention this, he’s starting to grow hair. Little hairs all over his head, and he’s growing tiny little eyebrows.” He hums to himself as he smoothly takes a left turn. “I hope he’s got hair like yours.”

“My hair’s a mess,” Eddie says.

_ “My  _ hair’s a mess,” Richie argues.

“He’s going to look like both of us,” Eddie tells him. He looks down at the ultrasound again. Richie’s right hand comes off the wheel and settles over Eddie’s on his stomach. He rubs his thumb in a circle on the back of Eddie’s hand. The car stays quiet; Richie keeps driving, doesn’t talk. Just keeps rubbing his thumb in a circle.

“I love you,” Richie says.

“I love you,” Eddie repeats.

“I was talking to our son,” Richie says, “but that’s fine. Love you, too.”

Eddie pinches his wrist and leans into him, letting his head rest on Richie’s shoulder as he drives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


	7. google search: i'm scared of something in my house destroying my baby; should i just live in the woods? advice forums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Doris peacefully co-exist.

Eddie and Richie have been together for twelve years, now; their anniversary is May 16th every year, the day they graduated high school. They’ve lived together almost that entire time, which means Eddie’s lived with Richie’s gigantic monster cat for her entire life — a solid seven years, now, since he found her in the street as a kitten and insisted on keeping her. Doris tolerates everybody’s presence with animosity, except for Richie, who she tolerates politely.

Either way, Eddie and Doris peacefully co-exist. That doesn't mean he's much of a cat person. He pets her, and she occasionally twines around his ankles, and that's that. It's about the extent of their relationship.

So, it makes logical sense that he, a person with a so-so response with cats and intense anxiety overall, ends up with a therapy dog, at the request of his therapist. Her name is Honey, and every time Eddie says it, Richie says, "Yes, dear?" as if on cue.

She's trained apart from him for a bit and comes into their house by the time he's at twenty-eight weeks to get acclimated to him. Now, she's fully moved in, Eddie's nearly at thirty weeks, and he's just now realizing he's not entirely sure how dogs and babies get along.

"Didn't you look into breeds and kids?" Richie asks. "Border collies are great with kids when you train 'em right."

"What if she bites his face?" Eddie asks. Richie sets his phone aside to watch Eddie pace the length of their living room, Honey following at his heels as he goes. He's already grown attached to her, but he's also not about to keep an animal in the house that might attack his child.

Every week, the concept gets firmer, more solid in his mind.  _ His child.  _ His son, who is nearly ready to be born, who could be born  _ today  _ and survive on his own, albeit a little small, outside of his body.  _ Outside  _ of it. On his own. An entire person, with his own entire life ahead of him, and it'll be Eddie and Richie's joint responsibility to make sure it's a good life.

The kid's going to  _ rely  _ on him.

So,  _ maybe  _ he's overreacting about the dog thing.

"There's so many different things that could happen that are out of our control, Eds," Richie tells him. He separates his knees, spreads his legs; he stretches his arms out along the back of the sofa on either side of him. He's inviting Eddie to come and sit with him, Eddie can tell; he's not ready to sit down yet, though.

"Not helping," Eddie snaps. He stops, exhales, then returns to pacing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't yell at you."

"Yell at me all you want," Richie says. Doris meanders into the room, looks Eddie and Honey over, then goes to Richie's ankle and shrieks (Richie says it's how she meows, but Eddie can tell the implications of her tone). Richie scoops her up and sets her right between his thighs, softly stroking her head.

"I'm _ not  _ going to  _ yell at you," _ Eddie yells at him. He exhales slowly again, counting backwards from ten, his chin tipped up so he's looking directly at the ceiling. Calmly, he repeats, "I'm not going to yell at you. I'm just  _ saying,  _ it  _ might  _ be a bad idea."

"I just got, like, six books from the library on dogs and newborns," Richie tells him. He leans forward, pissing Doris off enough to make her hiss, but not enough to make her move; he snatches up a paperback book on the table face-down on their coffee table and shows the cover to Eddie. "This one is  _ specifically  _ about female border collies. And I've got a shitload more online that're coming about anxiety dogs and therapy dogs and newborns and how they interact and how to introduce them, Eds, we  _ got this." _

Eddie pauses in his pacing to stop and stare at Richie. "I— That's what you've been reading?"

Richie glances at the cover of the book again with his eyebrows raised. He looks back to Eddie before sliding his glasses to the end of his nose and making a show of examining the title, saying, "Well, I  _ thought  _ it was, but maybe—"

"Shush, shut it," Eddie says, enjoying the nice moment for a beat.

"I don't want you to feel like you're doing all the work here," Richie tells him. He drops the book back down on the coffee table and leans back again, returning his hands to Doris' orange fur. "You know, you're growing him and you know all the smart stuff like bandaids and shit and you'll feed him and I just— I don't know. I wanna be useful for you any way I can."

Eddie studies Richie for a moment. His shoulders draw up a bit as Eddie watches him, lifting towards his ears, tense. Eddie crosses the room to him, Honey still following, her head cocked curiously as he sits on the edge of the couch cushion beside Richie.

He picks the book up off the coffee table, examines the photo on the cover of a baby in a basket with a border collie behind her, the dog's head on the baby's chest over a little pink dress.

"You felt like you weren't useful enough, so you turned yourself into a walking encyclopedia," Eddie says. "For me."

"Yeah," Richie tells him, no hesitation. "I painted the nursery, I assembled the furniture. I don't know what else to do, man, I'm at a loss. I'm about to learn how to knit just so I can make his clothes for him, at this point, I just—"

Eddie sets the book down again and reaches out to catch Richie's hands. Honey settles down at his feet, dropping her head over one socked foot and rolling over, clearly content with Eddie's emotional levels right now.

"Rich," Eddie says, looking hard into his eyes. His attention flicks over his face, just for a moment; he studies the tiny freckles on Richie's nose and across his cheeks, the dark hair of the scruff shadowing his jaw, the lines of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth. When he looks back up to his eyes, a couple black curls have spilled down into them. Eddie sweeps the hair back from Richie's face and just  _ looks  _ at him.

"You're freaking me out, Eds," Richie tells him with half a smile. It doesn't fully meet his eyes. Eddie brings Richie's hand to his chest, where his heart is  _ pounding, _ then down to the swell of his belly.

This is, at last, the final straw for Doris, who hurtles off of Richie's lap like a cannonball and lumbers out of the room like she's been personally wronged by Eddie. Honey just watches her go before yawning. Eddie forces himself to refocus on Richie and stop letting his mind wander away from doing the hard emotional work that he needs to fucking do, goddamnit.

The further along Eddie's been coming, the more they've been feeling the baby move. He shifts, kicks, punches; now and then, when Richie's voice is loud enough and clear enough, he responds to the things he says to Eddie and the baby. He'll respond to Eddie, too, but not all that much. Eddie's body is his baseline, after all.

Right now, there are small  _ ticks,  _ bubbly little hiccups that freaked Eddie out tremendously when they first happened, before he knew what they were. Now that he knows, he's only mildly freaked out.

"Hey, buckaroo," Richie says. He drops his head down and kisses the top of Eddie's belly before leaning back again. Eddie sits back against him, his back to Richie's chest; Richie strokes his hair, for a moment. His hands slips down to cup his belly again, and he nuzzles into Eddie's throat from the side.

"I'm terrified, too," Eddie finally admits quietly. Richie noses up into his hair. He's been  _ very  _ vocal about enjoying how thick the pregnancy hormones have made Eddie's already thick hair.

"What're you scared of, Spaghetti Man?" Richie asks.

"I'm scared  _ I'm  _ not doing enough," Eddie confesses to him. "I'm growing him just by default. Just because I have the parts and you don't, that's it. And I know, like— I know that I know logically  _ how  _ to take care of a child. I  _ can  _ take care of a baby in— in theory, but he's not just a  _ theory,  _ Rich, he's gonna be  _ our kid.  _ He's going to be— He'll be his own person and what if he doesn't like me? And he doesn't like me taking care of him, what do I do? Babies don't like me! I don't know what I'll—"

Richie slips his other hand up to cover Eddie's mouth and cut him off. Eddie rolls his eyes and licks Richie's palm, but Richie doesn't let him go.

"I've had your tongue most places," Richie comments. "My hand? Doesn't faze me."

"Lemme go," Eddie says, muffled.

"You gonna stop talking shit about my boyfriend?" Richie asks. Eddie nods. "Then you may be free."

When Richie's hand is off his mouth, Eddie turns to look at him, but he can only twist so far because of his own belly getting in the way. For the first time, he thinks,  _ Soon, this will be our baby, it'll be me holding our baby when I turn to him, it'll be our real living baby in my arms, _ and he's filled with both warmth and terror at the idea of it. For the first time, too, he's actually excited for it and not just completely horrified at the prospect of it all.

"Can I be candid with you?" Richie asks. Eddie rolls his eyes again.

"Are you ever not?" Eddie asks in return. Richie makes a waffling hand motion. "Fine, go ahead."

"I think we've got it all between us," Richie says. "Maybe I'll have a hard time with some shit and maybe sometimes you will. Maybe sometimes he'll hate me and love you and sometimes it'll be vice versa, but that's why we've got each other, right?"

Eddie studies Richie's earnest face, his warm cheeks, the hair falling back into his eyes. He reaches out and cups his face in his hand before kissing him softly.

"I'm sorry," Eddie says. Richie snorts.

"What the fuck for?" Richie asks.

"That I keep freaking out," Eddie clarifies. Richie kisses him again, then returns his hand back down to Eddie's belly to feel the baby jolting lightly with hiccups again.

"You're Eddie Kaspbrak, baby," Richie says. Eddie raises an eyebrow. "If you didn't freak out, you wouldn't be you. I rely on your freakouts, man. They mellow me out."

Eddie leans in and Richie meets him halfway for another kiss.

"Can I ask you something?" Richie questions him. Eddie nods, starting to lean in again. Richie stops him with his hand on his mouth again; this time, it's just the tips of his fingers against Eddie's lips.

Richie shifts backwards, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the engagement ring he's showed Eddie before. It's not even in its box; it's just loose in his pocket.

"I wanna ask if I can marry you," Richie says. "And I wanna ask if I can take your last name."

"What?" Eddie asks. His heart's pounding so hard he can feel it climbing up his throat. "Wh— What? Why? Richie,  _ why?" _

Richie laughs nervously, then looks back down to the ring in his hand. "I, uhh— Why what? Which one?"

"Of course I want to marry you, Richie, please," Eddie tells him. He takes the ring from Richie's hand and kisses him, because it's the only thing he can think to do, for a long minute. When he pulls back, he says, "Why the fuck do you want  _ my  _ last name? People never spell it right, it's a mess—"

"Because you're going to be my husband," Richie says. "I want to take my husband's last name. I'm kind of a housewife like that."

Eddie blames the burn in the backs of his eyes on his stupid hormones and the fact that he's been working on an emotional razor's edge for months. He wipes furiously at his face when the tears start spilling over unbidden; his smile's still wide enough to hurt his face anyways when he laughs.

"Fine, you can have my last name," Eddie says.  _ Acquiesces,  _ like he wouldn't do it. "Do you want him to have my last name, too?"

"No, I thought we should pick out a snazzy new one for Zucchini," Richie says. He spreads his hands like he's displaying a name up in lights on a marquee and says, "Moonstalker—"

_ "No," _ Eddie laughs tearfully. Honey whines softly, lifting herself to sit upright and drop her head into Eddie's lap. Eddie scratches into the scruff of fur by her collar.

"Nighthawk?" Richie suggests. When Eddie shakes his head, he continues with, "Slingblade? Sunchild? I can do this all day—"

"God,  _ don't,"  _ Eddie cuts him off. Richie smiles when he kisses him again. "By the way, telling me everything's out of my control so I shouldn't worry? Makes me worry more."

"Yeah, I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that it was bullshit," Richie says. "I just hoped you hadn't noticed, but ol' eagle-ears Kaspbrak, he's done it again—"

"Eagles don't have ears," Eddie tells him, just to watch Richie sputter and laugh, before he says, "I don't need to be in control."

"Oh,  _ okay,"  _ Richie says, disbelieving. Eddie lightly smacks his chest.

_ "But," _ Eddie continues sharply, trying not to smile at Richie's big dumb grin, "I  _ do  _ need someone to help me when things are out of my control."

"And that's me?" Richie asks.

"And that's you," Eddie assures him. Richie kisses him again, even though it makes Eddie turn too much for Honey's liking and she whines at them both again.

"Also, this dog would probably sleep through a third World War and a tank would just roll right over her. She'd never even know. She's really not a biting-faces-off-babies sort of dog.  _ But,"  _ Richie says, before Eddie can argue, "I'll keep an eye on her and Doris and if we have any problems, we'll figure it out, okay? But I don't think we will, Spaghetti Man. I think we've done our homework and we  _ might  _ just be on the right track with this."

"Do you think so?" Eddie asks. Richie smooths his hand down Eddie's front again to feel where their son is still hiccuping faintly. He nods, eyes trained down.

"I'm  _ pretty  _ sure I know so," Richie tells him. "Not to toot my own horn here or anything, but I'm one  _ hundred  _ percent positive you're going to be the best dad  _ ever." _

"How is that tooting your own horn?" Eddie asks incredulously before Richie kisses him again, effectively removing all other thoughts from his brain for the time being.


	8. google search: does my baby have lungs at thirty-five weeks or do they still put them in the iron lung if they're born at that point? also are there still iron lungs?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie wakes up early on the morning of August 1st tremendously uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeee!!

Eddie wakes up early on the morning of August 1st tremendously uncomfortable. His back is tight and his hips fucking  _ ache;  _ there's no comfortable positions to sleep in anymore, even though Richie lets him manhandle him into any position he wants for use as a human body pillow.

The biggest problem is that Eddie's frame isn't large or set wide to begin with. His legs and arms are still strong and roped with muscle, mostly because he still keeps up his adapted pregnancy workout routine; his shoulders aren't nearly as broad as Richie's, and he's five-nine on a good day, five-seven when he's telling the truth.

His abdomen is what feels disjointed and heavy now. He feels swollen, almost, and his chest hurts all the time, tender and sensitive. The baby's shifted around, now; Dr. Abrams said he's getting in position for birth, and the thought of it runs chills down Eddie's spine. He's been watching documentaries and YouTube videos and TLC shows with Richie to try and understand what it is he's going to have to do, but he's still not totally positive.

Eddie spends a lot of time now trying to remind himself that people have done this since people first started existing. This is  _ how  _ people keep existing. If other people can do it, he can do it. All he has to do is get through to the other side; in a few weeks, this will all be over.

Eddie tries to sit up, but he can't shift his gravity forward enough to gain the momentum to do it. With a groan, he falls back into the pillows, then nudges Richie's shoulder.

"Rich," he tries. Richie shifts a little in his sleep, brow furrowing. Ultimately, he doesn't wake up.  _ "Richie." _

"Mm?" Richie asks— Well, he "asks," bleary and mushed as he lifts his head, eyes still closed and face lined from the creases on his pillowcase.

"I need help getting up," Eddie tells him. Richie nods, yawning and shifting to sit up himself, scratching at his jaw as he does. Eddie watches him with a strange flair of lust and discomfort as the ache deepens when he moves. His pregnancy hormones make him whacked-out horny, but he also feels stupid uncomfortable right now like he's getting cramps all over again, and he sort of  _ really  _ hates it.

Richie helps Eddie up with an arm around his waist and the other up around his shoulders, easing him to his feet before he flops back down on their mattress.

"Call me if you need me," Richie mumbles into their bedsheets. Eddie strokes his hair for a moment before leaving him there to slip into their bathroom.

He's still too paranoid to take ibuprofen, even though he's thirty-five weeks pregnant now, so he doesn't bother digging it out of their cabinet. It used to be one of the only things that helped with cramps, but he has to remember these aren't cramps. It's just his body preparing to do a normal thing and that's all. It's fine. At worst, it's Braxton-Hicks contractions, and he gets a dry run. No sweat. He's  _ fine. _

Eddie tries to take a shower, but he doesn't really want to stand up that long, so he ends up abandoning it pretty quickly. Instead, he wanders out to their kitchen and starts picking through the contents of their refrigerator. Nothing particularly speaks to him, but the discomfort in his stomach is growing and twisting like hunger pangs.

He makes himself take an orange with him through the house as he keeps wandering. Honey joins him on his journey, following him as he goes room to room. He'd say he's aimless, but he has a destination in mind, and it doesn't take long to get there.

They'd picked out everything for the nursery together. Each piece of furniture and chip of paint has been tested and approved by both of them — and, in Eddie's case, twice each. Richie painted the walls in light stripes of mint green and lilac weeks ago; it still lightly smells of fresh paint, so Eddie opens the window and leans outside. The fresh air is sweet with cut grass and early morning humidity; he can practically  _ feel  _ his hair curling in the heat, and he sighs.

The glider they bought is right next to the window for exactly this reason. Eddie maneuvers himself down into it with a soft  _ whump;  _ Honey curls up right at his feet. As he sits there, slowly peeling his orange and mostly just feeling the breeze across his face, Doris slinks into the room. She appraises him for a moment before leaping up onto the top of the baby's dresser and settling down. She only ever acts like she can't get up high when Richie's around because he indulges her; it cracks Eddie up to watch her when he isn't around and she doesn't give a shit who sees her doing what.

She keeps her eyes on him, though, even as she lays down like a big orange loaf of bread on top of the dresser, paws tucked under herself. She looks from Honey to him. Eddie makes himself stop watching the cat and focus on eating his orange instead, the hunger pang twisting in his stomach again.

The sharp citrus of the orange is nice with the morning summer air. He feels content, for a moment. The baby shifts, then nudges at him; his movements have been getting smaller and tighter as he gets bigger and runs out of room. Eddie wishes he was taller and wider for a lot of reasons, but now he just feels mildly guilty that he's not.

The baby shifts again, so Eddie does, frowning at the surge of discomfort and the sharp ache in his hips when he moves. He exhales, slowly, then tries to find a more comfortable position again. All he succeeds in doing is making another cramp tighten painfully all the way back through his spine; it happens so suddenly that he digs his nails into the orange and squeezes it without thinking, and it bursts everywhere, juices dripping down his hand to the hardwood floor.

"Motherfucker!" he explodes, dropping the stupid thing on the floor. Honey runs for it, then stops and goes back to him instead, whining.

"I'm fine," he tells her. She whines again and puts her head in his lap, forcing his clean hand onto the top of her head. He relents, scratching her behind the ears for a moment as his pulse slows down,  _ just  _ to rocket back up as Richie trips into the room, half-awake, shoving his glasses on.

"What is it, what's wrong?" Richie asks blearily, scrubbing roughly at his face with one hand.

"I just— I squeezed the fucking orange and got fucking shit everywhere," Eddie spits. The backs of his eyes burn, and Honey whines again.

"Hey, it's okay," Richie tells him. "I'll go get some paper towels and a Clorox wipe, man, no worries. Be cleaned up in no time."

Eddie nods, still frustrated but trying to force himself to calm down. Richie darts back out of the room. On the dresser, Doris makes a soft purring sound Eddie's not sure he's  _ ever  _ heard her make outside of Richie's presence before, so he turns to her, frowning.

"What?" he asks her. She just keeps watching him calmly. Honey whines and pushes at his hand again before nosing at his belly. "Jesus Christ, the two of you."

Another cramp tightens hard and deep in his abdomen, a flash of heat licking up his spine, and Eddie realizes all at once what's actually happening. The contentment he'd felt earlier disappears in a flash, along with his frustration and his anger; all he feels in the moment is fear and pain.

"Richie!" he calls, grabbing the arms of the glider and trying to lever himself upwards. Honey backs up to give him space before running out the door. "Oh, man, fuck you, too—"

She comes back in only seconds tugging Richie by his pant leg with her teeth. Eddie laughs breathlessly as he reaches out to Richie.

"Help me up," he says. Richie does as he's told, taking Eddie by the wrists and helping haul him to his feet. Another cramp surges through him, tighter this time, slightly more painful, and Eddie's hands dig into Richie's as he grabs for him.

"Hey, whoa, what the fuck, you okay?" Richie says, all in one breath. He steadies Eddie on his feet before leaning back to look him over. "What's wrong, Eds, what hurts?"

"I just— I don't know," Eddie tells him. Richie pulls him in sideways so his head is pressing into his chest and his belly isn't in the way, and Eddie goes, melting into him and trying to be calm.

"It's okay," Richie says quietly. "I gotcha. Can you tell me where it hurts now? Can you point to it?"

Honey nudges the back of Eddie's knee with her nose before pushing her head under his hand again. She barks once up at them.

"Thanks, I was asking Eddie," Richie tells her. Eddie huffs another small laugh before the pain subsides again, like a wave crashing and dissipating. He breathes, for a moment.

"I don't know, it's just like weird cramps," Eddie tells him. He turns his face down, inexplicably feeling embarrassed and flushed with heat. He runs his hand over his belly mindlessly, finding where the cramps are coming from and saying, "Here, all the way back up my spine. It just hurts." Richie's lips are white when Eddie looks back up at him. Eddie surveys him nervously before asking, sharply, "What? What's wrong with you?"

"Are they contractions? Is that what contractions are?" Richie asks. He scrubs at his face, then exhales roughly. "Hoo, boy. Okay.  _ Okay,  _ we don't— I do have the bag I packed for you, I'll grab that and get myself a change of clothes and—"

"This isn't contractions," Eddie tells him, firm, panicked only  _ slightly,  _ so it’s  _ fine. _ He doesn't believe it, but he feels like he should put up a fight anyways, God knows why. "It's  _ not, _ they're not, I'm not— I'm not due for another month, Richie, I'm not—"

"Hey, you're okay," Richie says, cupping Eddie's face in both of his big hands. He kisses him hard on the forehead before embracing him again. "You're okay, baby's okay. He's got fingernails and everything now, y'know. He's, like, the size of a honeydew melon. Or a spaghetti squash. Or a George Foreman grill—"

"Thank you, yes, he's big, I can  _ tell,"  _ Eddie says impatiently. Richie laughs and kisses his forehead again. A cramp ripples through his lower belly again, and the baby pushes at his side at the same time, making him groan involuntarily.

"Okay, that's my cue to get you in the car," Richie says. Eddie shakes his head, planting his feet. "Eds, man, we gotta go."

"I have a birth plan," Eddie tells him, his hands starting to feel numb. Richie starts to speak, but Eddie shakes his head and says, "I have a  _ birth plan,  _ Richie. I'm supposed to have the baby  _ here.  _ In  _ September." _

"And you will," Richie says.  _ "But _ maybe I should just drive you in and have them check that you—"

"I'm not going!" Eddie explodes sharply. "I'm not going, I'm _ not, _ I can't, I'm not—" He scrubs at his face with his hands before his breath catches in his throat. He chokes on a half-sob, half-inhale before saying, "I'm not ready, he's not ready, Richie, I can't do this—"

"Hey, hey," Richie says, catching Eddie's wrists and drawing his hands together over his chest. Eddie can feel Richie's heart pounding hard and fast, quicker than he's ever felt it go. His hands are shaking, too, but he still looks at Eddie with such warmth and intent that Eddie finds himself taking a deep breath with him. "There you go, big guy."

"I'm not ready," Eddie tells him again, quieter this time. Honey goes to the corner of the room and drags over one of the quilts folded in a basket there, her signal to Eddie that she wants him to lay down.

"You're ready," Richie disagrees. "I  _ know  _ you're ready, you've  _ been  _ ready. You're gonna be  _ unstoppable,  _ Eds, I  _ know  _ you got this, but we can't have this baby here."

"I'm not having the baby," Eddie says, more just to be consistent than anything else. He doesn't really believe it anymore; he believes it even  _ less  _ when he gets another cramp that hurts worse than the last one, making him dig his nails into Richie's wrists for a moment.

"But just in case," Richie says magnanimously. "I'll get your bag, we'll just go over to Memorial and see what Dr. Abrams thinks, and when she gives you the all-clear we'll come right back home, okay?"

Eddie doesn't believe him.  _ Richie  _ obviously doesn't believe  _ himself,  _ but he's still trying so fucking hard that Eddie just nods. Richie kisses him hard, once on the lips and once on the temple.

"I'm gonna get your bag," Richie tells him. "Just in case."

"What if he's too small?" Eddie asks. A honeydew melon seems big until he remembers that size has to contain the entire functioning human system to keep his baby alive. "What if— What if he's not ready—"

"Hey, hey," Richie cuts him off. "He's ready, he's telling you he might be ready. But if he's not, we'll just come right home. But if he  _ is,  _ he'll be just fine, Eds, all the books say they're pretty much done by now, they're just tiny with tiny little organs and not a lotta meat on their bones yet."

"Jesus Christ, he has  _ bones,"  _ Eddie says, because the thought literally has  _ never  _ occurred to him before. "Okay, okay,  _ okay.  _ I'll— Okay, I'll go. Just to check.  _ Just to check—" _

"Yup, just to check,” Richie tells him. He edges Eddie one step at a time out of the room. “Do you wanna change or are you comfy in this?”

Eddie looks down at what he’s wearing, but it’s all Richie’s: oversized t-shirt, drawstring pajama shorts, the only things he really wears to bed anymore, if he wears anything at all, since they’re the only things that fit comfortably. He tugs at the hem of the t-shirt and starts to panic.

“Okay, you’re good in this,” Richie says. He guides Eddie to the living room and sits him down on the couch, kissing the crown of his head quickly before darting back down the hallway. He returns with Eddie’s shoes; he kneels down and slips them on for him while Eddie just tries to breathe evenly.

“I can’t do this,” Eddie tells him. Richie shakes his head, but Eddie clutches his hands to stop him from leaving again and says, “Richie,  _ Richie,  _ I can’t do this, I  _ can’t,  _ I’m not going—”

“You  _ can,” _ Richie insists. He crouches next to the sofa and holds Eddie’s hands tight between his own. He’s sleep-rumpled, still wearing his pajamas, his hair a mess, his glasses still crooked. Eddie clings to him. “You can do this, Eds, I know you can.”

“I  _ can’t,”  _ Eddie insists. He feels like his chest is getting tighter and tighter as he tells him, “I can’t do it, I’m— I’m not capable of this, Richie, I’m not, I’m  _ not—” _

“Hey, hey,” Richie cuts him off. “Eddie, I watched you kill a psychotic clown before you turned fourteen.  _ Fourteen,  _ Eddie. You started  _ transitioning  _ in  _ Maine,  _ man. You’re a dude carrying a baby who’s pretty open about being gay for me. Worst of all, Eds, you’re a fucking  _ mechanic,  _ I don’t know what bravery is if it’s not—”

Eddie laughs, curling down as far as he can, which isn’t far. He exhales roughly before pulling his hands free to scrub at his face. After a moment, he takes a deep breath, then another, exhaling slow this time.

“You’re braver than you think, Eddie,” Richie tells him softly. Eddie nods, his face still covered by his hands. “I know you can do this. And I’m going to be there with you the entire time, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise,” Eddie says, more statement than question.

“Of course I promise,” Richie says quietly. He kisses the top of Eddie’s head. “Of  _ course  _ I promise, Eds. I’m gonna be there the entire fucking time. If you want me to pull the kid out of you, I’ll do it.”

Eddie laughs again, finally lifting his head. “Please don’t.”

“I was gonna be the one who did it here,” Richie reminds him, smiling. “I don’t see why that should change, just because we’re gonna be hanging around a bunch of wannabe so-called  _ ‘doctors—’” _

“Fuck, stop, shut up,” Eddie laughs. He gets a stitch in his side that quickly becomes another cramp, and he breathes through it, leaning back against the couch cushions and trying to relax as the pain leaves him again. Richie kisses him hard on the forehead.

“I’m gonna get our stuff and call Bill, okay?” Richie tells him. “Hang tight, big guy. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, even though it’s not what he means to say; it just slips out. Richie kisses him one last time, right on the crease between his eyebrows, and he lingers there, just breathing for a moment. When he pulls away, his own face is pink and his eyes are glassy.

“Gimme two shakes,” he says, pretending he’s not emotional as he darts out of the room. Eddie just watches the hallway and waits for him, because it’s not like he has much else to do right now.

He shifts, just trying to find a more comfortable position that doesn’t immediately send jolts of pain through his muscles. He ends up leaning back into the corner of the sofa, propped up sideways; Honey jumps up onto the couch beside him and lays down right along his side, dropping her head down on his belly protectively. Eddie scratches her behind the ears.

Doris meanders into the room and surveys Eddie again. This time, she hops up onto the back of the sofa. She and Eddie make eye contact for a moment before she lays down again, licks one paw, and lays her head down, her furry face smushed into the cushion. She keeps one round eye trained right on him.

Eddie dozes off like that, sitting up in the corner of the sofa, and he’s jolted back awake to the sound of a key rattling in the lock on their front door. He groans when the sudden movement sends another shock of pain rolling through his insides.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Richie says as he skids past him, only one boot on. “It’s just Bill, I’m sorry, rest some more— Billy!”

“Hey!” Bill exclaims, as Richie wrenches the door open. He leans in to yank his key out of the lock on his way past Richie towards Eddie on the couch. “Eds, hey there. How’re you feeling?”

“Freaked out,” Eddie tells him honestly. It’s  _ Bill.  _ He doesn’t really care about being embarrassed right now, because it hurts again and he’s terrified and all he wants, abruptly, is for Bill to tell him it’s okay. When Bill says it, he  _ means  _ it.

“Hey, you got this,” Bill tells him. He sits right next to Eddie, wedged in with him and Honey, and strokes his hair back from his face. It’s intimate, for a moment; Bill smiles at him, and Eddie feels slightly less afraid. “Eddie, you’ve  _ got this,  _ you’re the most amazing guy we know. If anyone can do this,  _ you  _ can. And I can’t  _ wait  _ to meet my nephew, so you know I’m on the other side and I’m here for you, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie says. Bill pulls him to his feet and hugs him, dislodging Honey; luckily, she loves Bill, and just winds around his knees and barks as he does it.

“Alright, let’s roll,” Richie exclaims, coming back into the room. “Bag is packed, car is ready, car seat is— Car seat, wait—”

“Richie,” Eddie calls. Richie spins, Eddie’s duffle bag whacking into his side with the momentum. He’s got the car seat hanging off his other arm, despite his confusion. Eddie points down to his ankles. “You need two shoes.”

Richie looks down at his one boot and one sock and laughs, a little frantic, before jogging back out of the room.

“Maybe he’s the one I should be worried about,” Bill comments. Eddie slightly smacks his arm. Honey barks again, so Eddie scratches under her chin, then up to her ears and the top of her head. “Honey, you and I are gonna have a  _ ball.  _ Maybe Doris will even do a keg stand.”

They both look back at the cat. She lazily flicks her tail at them before yawning, showing off all her little needle-teeth. Another cramp wracks Eddie’s belly, the baby shoving at him again as he nearly doubles over with it. He can’t move down enough to do it, since his own goddamn body is in the way; Bill catches him anyways.

“Shit,” he comments.

“Thanks,” Eddie grumbles. He breathes until it’s gone. “They’re just weird cramps.”

“Isn’t that what contractions are?” Bill asks. “I’ve really only seen it in movies and read about it in the books Richie gave me, though, so obviously I don’t know.”

“I don’t want him born early,” Eddie says. “He’s too little, he  _ can’t.” _

Richie comes back in with both boots on and the bag still slung across his chest, declaring, “He’s gonna be  _ just fine,  _ we gotta  _ go.” _

“Call me when you’re settled in,” Bill says, tugging Eddie in for another tight hug. When he lets him go, Eddie feels like he wants to cry, but he crams it down and lets Richie take his hand. “I love you guys.”

“We love you, too, Billy,” Richie says, at the same time Eddie says, “Love you, Bill.”

“Call me,” Bill says, one last time, before they’re out the door. Eddie feels like everything is blurring until he gets another contraction — and he knows that’s what it is, he  _ knows  _ it, he wants to keep denying it but he fucking  _ can’t —  _ and his back lights up with pain at the same time.

“Deep breaths, big guy,” Richie tells him, squeezing his knee. Eddie’s not even sure when the fuck he got into the car. Richie turns his hand to hold Eddie’s tight before giving him a reassuring smile. “You got this. We’ll be there in twenty minutes, no sweat, and you’ll be just fine. Okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie says. Richie kisses him, and Eddie leans into it, desperate for the comfort.

“We’ll be there soon,” Richie tells him regretfully after he’s pulled away. When he backs out of their driveway, he doesn’t pull his hand out of Eddie’s; for once, Eddie can’t make himself say anything about him driving one-handed. He’s too busy breathing through another contraction that tightens all of his muscles, making his inhale sharply.

“Holy  _ shit,  _ this fucking  _ hurts,”  _ Eddie hisses through clenched teeth. The pain ebbs again, his muscles relax, and he sighs, rubbing at his face with his free hand. “Richie—”

“I’m driving, I got you,” Richie tells him. “We’re almost there, alright? You wanna count minutes between each one for me, Eds, hm? Look at the clock, what time is it?”

“It’s six thirty-two,” Eddie says. Richie looks down at the clock with a frown.

“Fuck, is it really?” he asks. “Shit, it’s  _ early.” _

“Forgive me for—”

“No, not a problem, I just didn’t realize,” Richie cuts him off. Eddie relaxes and looks at the clock again, waiting until another contraction comes. They’re nearly at the hospital by the time it comes, and the clock reads six forty-five.

“Now,” Eddie tells him, squeezing Richie’s hand tight. The pain is tighter again, flaring hot through his belly and his spine for a full two minutes before subsiding again. Richie kisses the back of his hand. “Fuck,  _ fuck—” _

“And we’re here, I gotcha here,” Richie tells him. “Steady as she goes, Spaghetti Man. Boat’s in harbor.”

“You’re such a dingus,” Eddie says. Richie helps him out of the car easy once they’re parked in the hospital’s parking garage.

“You’re the one having  _ my  _ baby,” Richie reminds him. “Dingus Junior.”

_ “Stop,”  _ Eddie tells him, laughing again. “I’m not having this baby.”

“But in case you are,” Richie says. He leans over the desk in the lobby until a nurse sees him, at which point he waves like a fucking maniac and Eddie just wants to die.

“What can I do for you?” she asks. “Are you looking for a particular—”

“We’re hoping to see Dr. Abrams,” Richie says. He whistles, then points down at Eddie. “She’s got a skill we’d like some help with right now.”

“Oh, of course, sit right down here—  _ Marc!”  _ she shouts over her shoulder. “Chair, please!”

A nurse in scrubs that Eddie can only assume is Marc helps him into a wheelchair while Richie hovers nervously, talking with the nurse behind the counter to get directions up to the office Dr. Abrams keeps in the Birthing and Maternity Center of the hospital. Just hearing the words makes the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck stand up on end as fear rolls through him again. His palms sweat just before another contraction wrenches through him, sharper again.

“We’re gonna get you right upstairs, okay?” Marc asks. Eddie looks from his intense exuberant energy to Richie, nails digging into the arms of the wheelchair as he tries to silently beg him with his face to make this man stop.

“Hey, I can wheel him,” Richie says, making hard eye contact with Eddie for a moment. Marc puts up a protest, but Richie takes him over anyways, and Marc just leads them towards the elevators. He makes small talk with Richie the whole way there; Eddie’s grateful Richie knows him well enough to know he can’t deal with that right now.

“Well, look who it is!” Dr. Abrams exclaims as soon as they get into the waiting area of the Maternity Center. “They called up and said Eddie Kaspbrak was here, I thought that’s unexpected so I thought I’d meet you—”

“I’m scared I’m having him now,” Eddie cuts her off. His contraction ended on the way down the hall from the elevators, but he’s still red-faced and sweaty from it, his jaw stinging and shoulders tense from trying to silently ride through the pain in front of Marc.

“Well, let’s check that out, then,” Dr. Abrams says. She’s all calm and chill, and Richie plants a soft kiss on the back of Eddie’s head before they start moving again, and Marc fucks off somewhere, so Eddie’s the most comfortable he’s been since they arrived.

The next contraction comes after only eleven minutes, this time, and his breath hitches in his throat when he tries to stay quiet through it still. Richie squeezes his shoulder as he helps him stand up from the wheelchair in the exam room.

“Help him change and I’ll be right back,” Dr. Abrams says, yanking the curtain around the door. Richie pulls his own t-shirt off of Eddie’s torso, careful not to drag too much against his skin. Eddie appreciates it with how oversensitive he is, his flesh crawling as Richie kneels to pull his shorts and underwear down, too. He gingerly pulls each of Eddie’s shoes off one at a time with a gentle hand cupping his calf, slowly slipping each one off.

“Grab the robe, buddy,” Richie instructs him. Eddie does snatch the hospital gown up off the exam table behind them, pain taking a backseat to just plain discomfort in between the contractions. Richie holds the gown open like it’s a coat; Eddie slips his arms in and turns, letting Richie tie the strings loosely at the back.

When Dr. Abrams and Richie work together to help him up onto the exam table, Eddie gets another flash of embarrassment and shame that dissolves when the next contraction comes, seizing his lower belly with a tight pain worse than any cramp he’s felt before. He whimpers, reaching out to grab Richie’s wrist tight in the circle of his fingers.

“Certainly seems like something’s happening,” Dr. Abrams comments cheerfully. Eddie glares at her, but she just keeps smiling at him. She’s beyond used to his shit after just over eight months of this from the both of them.

Eddie hates  _ anyone  _ except Richie going  _ anywhere  _ near his naked body, but he makes an exception for Dr. Abrams, who whistles in response to whatever she’s feeling and seeing inside of him.

“You’re about two centimeters dilated, nearly three,” Dr. Abrams tells him. “Your water hasn’t broken yet?”

“No,” Eddie tells her. “Is it— I mean, is it happening now? Is it happening today or is this just one of those things where I need bed rest for a little while or something? Because he’s not nine months yet and I’m not— I’m not sure if I should do this now, maybe. Maybe we should wait.”

Dr. Abrams gives him an understanding smile as she rolls her gloves off, peeling them from her fingers and tossing them in the trash bin across the room. “I’m sorry, Eddie, but you haven’t got much of a choice. Now, I know this wasn’t in your birth plan—”

“Fucking  _ no,  _ of  _ course  _ it wasn’t,” Eddie grumbles. Richie squeezes his shoulder and kisses the crown of his head again.

_ “But,”  _ Dr. Abrams continues, “I  _ also  _ know that your pregnancy has been going better than we ever expected and Baby Kaspbrak has been moving right along, so I’m not concerned in the least about how this is going to go, okay? You’re going to do a wonderful job and you have a big support staff here. Plus Richie,” she adds, motioning up to him. Richie nods eagerly.

“Plus me,” he echoes. “I’m also here for you.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He looks to Dr. Abrams again. “I just remembering reading when I was looking on my phone and Googling stuff and the websites, they said— They said at thirty-five weeks, his lungs might not be developed all the way, and they said we might have to keep him in the NICU if—”

“Eddie,” Dr. Abrams says, stern but kind. “What did I tell you about Googling?”

Eddie scowls, turning up to look to Richie for backup. Richie’s still looking at Dr. Abrams, though.

“You’re nearly to the thirty-six week mark,” Dr. Abrams tells Eddie. “The biggest potential problems we’re looking at is a slight lung immaturity and an increased risk for infection. Besides that, every ultrasound and exam we’ve done points directly to him being ready to go, Eddie.”

“See?” Richie says as he helps Eddie stand again and collapse back in the wheelchair. “You’ve done such a good job taking care of him he’s done early. Master baker Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“Shut  _ up,”  _ Eddie says, fond and cautiously optimistic and still horribly terrified.

There’s nobody else in the room they’re put in, even though there’s a second empty bed. Eddie counts his lucky fucking stars as Richie helps him up and into the bed Dr. Abrams guides them to.

“You two sit tight,” Dr. Abrams says. “You’re just going to start riding this out and keeping an eye on how far apart the contractions are for me, okay? Rich, you’re on timer duty.”

“Roger dodger,” Richie replies. “When should we call?”

“I wanna hear when he’s about six minutes apart,” Dr. Abrams tells him. She shows them the call button on the bed before pressing it. “Let’s get Donna in here to— Hey, Donna, can you hook my friend Eddie up here with a nice IV to keep him hydrated?”

“Sure thing,” Donna, a much calmer-seeming nurse than Marc, says from the doorway before darting off down the hall.

“You’re in the right spot and we’re going to take care of you,” Dr. Abrams tells him. “We know what we’re doing, and so do you. I promise you. We’ve got your back.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says. Dr. Abrams squeezes his shoulder before leaving them alone.

Donna’s back quick; she hooks Eddie up with an IV drip to keep him hydrated before taking a spare blanket and draping it over him from the waist down. She tells him to call for her if he needs anything before she’s gone, too, and the both of them are left completely alone in the hospital room. Distantly, Eddie can hear something beeping.

“Well,” Richie says, before dropping himself down in the chair next to the bed. He scoots it closer before propping his heels up on the mattress, feet crossed at the ankles. “Start the show, Eds, c’mon.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Eddie laughs, tugging the blanket up further and shifting to try and get comfortable.  _ “Motherfu—  _ You know what, fuck this, I’m not laying down, help me up.”

“What?” Richie asks.

“Help me up,” Eddie repeats. “Help me walk around, help me up, I wanna walk, my hips fucking  _ hurt,  _ Rich.”

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Richie tells him. It’s a process to leverage him back to his feet, especially since Eddie is mostly dead weight at this point through no fault of his own, but they pull it off. He exhales slowly once he’s standing.

“I fucking hate this,” Eddie says, staring down hard at the floor. He tries to think of this room as just a room; he  _ tries  _ not to think of this as a hospital room, where he’s staying because his baby is coming early and there’s nothing he can do to stop it, but he’s too twitchy. He was only six when his dad died in a hospital, but sometimes he still feels like he’s fucking six when he ends up back in one.

“I know, Eds,” Richie says. He drops his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and kisses his hair. “You’re doing so well, though. Moving right along, really, he’ll be here in no time and it’ll all be over with. We can go home.”

“Home,” Eddie repeats. After a brief moment, he exhales slowly, imagining the next time he gets to go home. He’ll be with their son, outside of him instead of inside; he’ll have a name, and they’ll know what he looks like, and the variables haunting now right now will go away. They’ll be replaced by all-new risks and fears, but Eddie’s ready for some new ones after the last (nearly) nine months. “I can’t wait to go home.”

“I know,” Richie says. “So, do a good job here, listen to Dr. Abrams, and we’ll be outta here lickity-split, alrighty?”

“Alright,” Eddie agrees. Richie tips his face up and kisses him softly.

“I got you,” Richie says. “And you  _ got this.” _

“I don’t know if I do,” Eddie tells him. “But I’m going to try anyways.”

“Now,  _ there’s  _ the Eddie Kaspbrak we all know and love,” Richie says excitedly; Eddie just turns his face down to hide the stupid smile on his face before Richie pulls him back in for another kiss, more exuberant this time.

“I want to walk,” Eddie says, pushing Richie away lightly at the shoulder. The pain’s starting to ramp up again, squeezing tight around his insides, and he just tries to breathe, leaning into Richie as his mind goes a little fuzzy and his sweaty hands start going a little numb again.

“I got you,” Richie says. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here. Breathe, Eds, okay?”

“I  _ am  _ breathing,” Eddie tells him sharply. The act of talking actually makes it easier to breathe and distracts him for a moment. Well, it distracts him long enough, anyways; he feels a surge of heat roll down his spine, accompanied by a rush of pain and a surge of wetness that gushes down his legs.

“You haven’t pissed yourself in  _ years,”  _ Richie tries to joke. Eddie just stares at the water on the ground. “You’re okay. Eddie—”

“No, no,  _ no,  _ I’m not  _ ready,”  _ Eddie insists, staring at the floor still. The water’s still dripping and he doesn’t know what the fuck to  _ do  _ but  _ he’s  _ the only one who’s supposed to be doing all of it.

“Yes, you are,” Richie says. “I  _ promise  _ you you’re ready. We’re both ready, we’re ready as we’ll ever be and we’re going to be just fine, okay? The way you’re doing things, this baby’ll out in twenty minutes tops, it’s all over, we’ll go home. Okay?”

_ “No,”  _ Eddie says forcefully this time. Richie pulls him into his arms, ignoring the fact that he’s dripping wet and writhing with pain and spitting mad with fear. Eddie clings to him in return, after a moment, getting as close to Richie as he can with his belly in the way, twining his arms around his waist and just letting himself be held by him for a moment.

“I got you, Eds,” Richie murmurs. He kisses the top of his head again. “I got you. We got this. Twenty minutes, okay? And then it’s over.”

“Okay,” Eddie finally agrees. “Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,” Richie repeats, helping Eddie sit back down on the edge of his bed before he slams the button to call a nurse back in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
> 
> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


	9. google search: what is a good size for a premature baby and how can i tell if they're going to be short or not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty hours later, Eddie feels like he's straight-up ready to lose his fucking _mind._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter:  
> \- was written in a fevered haze;  
> \- probably has countless inaccuracies;  
> \- does have graphic descriptions;  
> \- is unbearably tender
> 
> enjoy!!

Twenty hours later, Eddie feels like he's no fucking closer to giving birth, and he's straight-up ready to lose his fucking  _ mind. _

He barely manages to sleep at all; he ends up waking up after a fitful almost-two hours at dawn. The clock on his phone reads just after five. Richie's passed out asleep on the bed next to his, still propped up sideways like he'd been when Eddie fell asleep, keeping watch over him. His glasses are crooked; he's got bags under his eyes, too, and he's snoring lightly, one hand tucked up under his chin.

Eddie watches him for a moment before realizing what woke him back up, which is a searing jolt of pain that ripples through his entire body before tightening at the base of his spine. He chokes on an inhale, smacking the table next to him on accident. The resulting clatter makes Richie leap from his bed, disoriented.

"What's wrong?" Richie asks. His eyes are barely even open as he adjusts his glasses to be in the correct spot. "You okay, big guy?"

_ "No," _ Eddie manages. Richie scans the monitor beside him, reading the baby's heart rate and the contraction measure. Whatever he sees apparently is fine to him, because he climbs up into the bed with Eddie right after, positioning himself right behind him in bed and tugging him back. Eddie leans into him, his bare back to Richie's bare chest; Richie smoothes his hands down Eddie's arms and kisses his cheek.

"I gotcha," Richie tells him quietly. Eddie digs his nails into Richie’s wrists on accident, but the pain hits a peak and he cries out, unable to relax his grip. "You're okay. You're okay, right?"

"It hurts— hurts so much," Eddie gasps. Richie helps him sit forward again, maneuvers him onto his hands and knees and firmly rubs his back. He digs the heel of his hand in all along Eddie's spine, down to his hips and his pelvis. Eddie nearly sobs, digging his forehead into the mattress.

"This seems a lot worse, Eds," Richie says. His tone is even, but Eddie can tell he's getting nervous again. "I can call for the nurse."

Another contraction starts almost immediately after the last one stops. Eddie nods frantically, and Richie grabs the nurse call button. He slams it three times fast before just shouting for Donna.

She comes into the room fast, flicking the light on as she goes.

"He only slept for about two hours and he just woke up in pain again," Richie tells her hurriedly. "The monitor says they're not really stopping for very long—"

"No fucking shit," Eddie spits. A wave of pain crests, but doesn't subside; it stays strong for a full minute before relaxing. Eddie can barely focus when they're happening, let alone talk through them. He only realizes that Dr. Abrams has come back when he gets a brief break again.

"Heard you're not feeling so hot," Dr. Abrams says, pulling gloves out of the latex-free box on the counter. She looks to Richie and motions to Eddie. "Help him lay on his back again, please."

"Aye, aye, doc," Richie says, already doing as she asks. Eddie barely can pay attention through the new wave of pain and heat that runs right through him and seizes his lower body. He sobs again, turning his face back into Richie’s shoulder, contorting to get there; Richie rubs his shoulder blades again and helps turn him back around.

"He's ready to go," Dr. Abrams says once she's examined him. She turns to Donna and says, "Will you get Shannon for me, please?"

"Who's Shannon?" Richie asks. Eddie relaxes again, another brief break where he can breathe for a moment.

"She's my favorite NICU obstetrics nurse and she's going to help us in case we need anything," Dr. Abrams says. Eddie looks back to Richie, feeling his heart speed up as the monitor attached to his index finger starts beeping rapidly.

"Is he okay?" Eddie asks Richie, grabbing his hands again. Richie nods, turning his face into Eddie's.

"It's just in case," Richie tells him. "You know all about  _ just in case,  _ don't you, Eds? Everything's going to go perfectly, though, so all you're going to do is impress the shit out of everyone."

"Listen to the man," Dr. Abrams says. Donna returns with who Eddie can only assume is Shannon, but Eddie can't focus. Another contraction tears through him, this one with so much pressure that Eddie shoves away from Dr. Abrams and uses Richie's body to leverage himself upwards again.

"Help," Eddie asks, voice thin and choked. Richie hoists him right up under the arms onto his hands and knees again, but it just makes it all worse until he feels like he's supposed to be doing something, his blood licking with flames.

"Eddie, do you feel pressure?" Dr. Abrams asks. Her hand touches his side, but his skin's too sensitive, and he flinches. Richie strokes his hair back before running his fingers down the line of Eddie's back, digging in near his hips and his waist again.

"Yes," Eddie manages to tell her.

"Do you feel an urge to push?" she asks. He nods jerkily, dropping his head again. "Perfect, that's perfect. Can you turn around for me?" He shakes his head once where it's hanging above the mattress before rolling forward again, curling up as best as he can around his belly. He can  _ feel  _ everything moving inside him, and it's  _ weird  _ and painful and he just wants it to be over.

"How do you want to do this, Eddie?" Shannon asks him. Eddie looks to her while he's still on his hands and knees, arms shaking. Richie leans closer over him to wrap a strong arm around his chest and support most of his body weight, holding him up above the mattress.

"I wanna lie down," Eddie says, because he can't keep himself upright anymore. Richie gently pulls him backwards again before he starts to climb off the bed, but Eddie shakes his head, grabbing his arms to keep him in place. "He doesn't have to— Can he stay? I want him to stay."

"He can stay unless and until he gets in the way," Dr. Abrams says. She looks over her glasses at Richie. "You ready for labor and delivery, Richie?"

"What's the last day been if not practice," Richie jokes. He's a little too loud, a little too fast. Eddie twists to kiss his cheek again before the next contraction hits. He wants to fucking scream, whirling back around to curl up over his belly and cry in harsh gasps.

"I'm—" Eddie manages, before he inhales deeply and grabs one of his knees to yank it up.

"Oh, okay, we're doing this," Dr. Abrams says, yanking her mask up into place as Shannon tugs blankets and pillows out of the way. Donna snaps out the stirrups for Eddie's heels to fit into, but she and Richie have to help guide him when he can't focus through the pain.

"Hey, hey, you got this," Richie tells him. "You're doing it. Just a little bit more and we're going to have our baby and it's all going to be over, okay?"

Eddie nods in sharp jerks of his head before surging forward again, finally giving in to what his body's trying to get him to do. His fear starts seeping away, even as the pain spikes and his muscles all contract tightly at once; it's replaced with a fiery determination, not to get this over with, but to have his baby. He wants to bring his baby into the world, he wants to give Richie their baby, he's  _ done  _ fucking waiting.

"Good job, Eddie, he's already making his descent," Dr. Abrams calls up to him. Shannon tells him to relax, so he does, falling back into Richie. "Lean into the next one, okay, Eddie? He's at the middle station and his head's almost through, okay? Give me a good one."

Eddie nods and does it, he  _ does it,  _ because he can feel the sharp burns of pain when the baby's head starts to slip out. He almost sobs with it before Shannon's patting him on the knee.

"You can do it again, Eddie," she tells him. "We're gonna get the shoulders and then it's going to be smooth sailing, okay?"

Eddie nods again, unable to speak anymore. Richie keeps rubbing his shoulders, his upper arms, his sides, his belly, anywhere and everywhere he can reach. Eddie does his fucking best, imagines holding his baby for the first time and just fucking goes for it.

The relief he feels when the shoulders pass and Dr. Abrams pulls the baby the rest of the way out is immense, and he shudders, falling back against Richie again. He forces his eyes to stay open and watching Dr. Abrams as she starts lifting their baby, his head still down as he starts to breathe and screams blue murder. Donna suctions the fluid out of his mouth and his nose before Dr. Abrams stands and sets the baby right down on Eddie's bare stomach, his head pillowed on Eddie's chest as he keeps screaming.

"Holy shit, Eds," Richie says softly. His hand comes out to stroke the baby's face, smearing blood and fluids as he does. He wipes off the baby's eyes and runs his hand back through his hair, slicked back to his head.

"God," Eddie chokes out. He knows him, he fucking  _ knows  _ him. This is his  _ son, _ and Eddie loves him so suddenly and dramatically that he knows he'd do anything for him.  _ Anything.  _ It's jarring to have his world shift so abruptly.

"Look at him," Richie says.

Eddie does. He's impossibly fucking small; he can't weigh more than five pounds, and his entire body, head and all, are smaller than Richie's whole hand. Eddie checks his limbs himself, bends his arms, checks his hands and fingers, feet and toes. He has soft, round cheeks, a tiny nose that does really look like his own, and big blue eyes that don't focus on anything when he blinks them open. Eddie runs his thumb over the shell of his tiny ear, rubbing through his thick black curls.

"Wanna cut them apart for us, Richie?" Dr. Abrams asks. Richie nods, maneuvering himself out of the bed and to the floor. He takes the gloves Donna offers him before cutting the cord with a grimace and a laugh.

"Fucking  _ rank,"  _ Richie says, tears in his eyes. Eddie huffs an exhausted laugh, leaning back against the incline of the hospital bed.

When another contraction wracks his frame, Shannon takes the baby from him, even though his entire being revolts at the feeling of his baby being taken away from him. He grabs Richie's hand.

"Go with him," Eddie tells him insistently. "Stay with him no matter where he goes, make sure his lungs are okay."

"Okay," Richie tells him without hesitation. He kisses Eddie softly before straightening up again.

"Have we got a name?" Donna asks, clicking a pen as she scribbles out information onto the card for the baby's bassinet and the paperwork for Richie to fill out.

"Which name do you wanna use?" Richie asks. "I'm good with any of your finalists. You've earned the final say after all of that."

Eddie smiles, turning his head a little to watch his baby get cleaned off before his hands and feet get painted with ink and stamped on his birth certificate. He just stares, unable to take his eyes off him.

"Is Shiloh still good?" Eddie asks, never looking away from the baby. He can see Richie nod in his peripheral vision.

"It's great, Eds," Richie says. Shannon gets his attention, settling Shiloh into his bassinet and telling Richie something. Richie nods, reaching in and doing something quick with his hands; it takes him a second to realize he's swaddling Shiloh.

"We are just going to run Shiloh here down to the NICU, run a few tests, but I'm honestly amazed at his oxygen intake," Shannon tells Eddie. "He'll be back in no time, okay?"

"Okay," Eddie says. The next contraction starts to shudder through him; Richie hesitates, but Eddie waves him off. "Stay with him."

Richie leaves with Shannon and Shiloh; Eddie tries not to scream at the feeling of loss it puts in his chest before his body's filled with pain again.

Passing the placenta doesn't hurt nearly as bad as actually giving birth had, and it's luckily only five minutes at most, but it's still not a fucking walk in the park. It's not until it's all over and Donna is helping him sit up before she starts scrubbing him down that Dr. Abrams asks, "Oh, did you have a middle name picked out?"

Richie's already gone; Eddie panics briefly because he can't get approval before he remembers an idea he's had before. He smiles and leans back to look at Dr. Abrams where she's standing at the counter.

"Richard," Eddie tells her. She smiles and writes it down. "Think he's going to like it?"

"I think he's going to  _ love  _ it," Dr. Abrams tells him. She rests a hand on his head for a brief moment before continuing to help Donna clean.

* * *

Richie and Shiloh really aren't gone all that long, all things considered, but Eddie's practically crawling out of his skin after an hour of them being gone. He gets cleaned up and redressed and helped to a new room in the postnatal ward before anyone tells him what's going on.

"He's passing tests with flying colors," Donna tells him, hooking him up to a new IV to keep him hydrated. "He doesn't need an incubator, last I heard. He's strong, Eddie."

Eddie nods, feeling the backs of his eyes start burning again. Donna's hand finds his shoulder; he closes his eyes completely and exhales, long and slow.

"Oh, speak of the devil," Donna says, just as the door to the room creaks open.

"Hey there," Richie says. Shannon's pushing the bassinet, but Richie's right beside it, hand on the edge of it. He beams at Eddie once he's in.

"How is he?" Eddie asks. Richie reaches into the bassinet and lifts Shiloh up without hesitating. He's so fucking  _ small,  _ impossibly tiny in Richie's huge hands; he's been swaddled in a little green blanket with a small green hat pulled down over his hair.

Eddie's chest burns warm and soft, better than anything he's ever felt before. He's terrified and overwhelmed, yeah, but he also feels like his insides are sticky-sweet like taffy; even through the pain, he's pretty much the happiest he's ever been.

"I love him," Eddie says quietly. He'd been afraid he might have not felt attached, maybe. His own relationship with his mother was so strained and uncomfortable and abusive that he spent dozens of late nights staring into the darkness, wondering what the fuck makes him think  _ he's  _ going to be any different.

He thinks he knows now. He hopes, anyways. He really and truly loves Shiloh unconditionally already; he can't begin to imagine locking him in his bedroom or purposefully making him cry or giving him medication he doesn't need. He'd kill someone if they ever did that  _ to  _ Shiloh, and he's a little alarmed that he feels so strongly. At the same time, though, he's completely unsurprised and intensely pleased. He can't help but smile.

"Got your new name card here," Donna says, waving the slip before she swaps it out of the slot at the front of the bassinet. Richie raises an eyebrow down at Eddie as Donna slips out of the room, saying, "Call if you need, you know the drill."

"Did you change his name on me while I was gone?" Richie asks once they're alone. Eddie shakes his head; before he can offer any more information, Richie spins the bassinet around and reads where Donna's neat handwriting spells out  _ Shiloh Richard Kaspbrak  _ in black marker.

There's a long minute where Richie doesn't say anything. He just stands beside Eddie's hospital bed, his hand on the edge of the bassinet, staring down at the name. Shiloh makes a soft sound, almost a squeak; Eddie tugs his hat off, then unwraps him from his blanket so he can get their skin-to-skin contact. Shiloh relaxes once they have it, but Eddie does, too, slumping down a little bit and running his fingertips lightly over Shiloh's back. His soft skin is covered in a layer of almost-imperceptible downy fuzz. This close up, Eddie can see the tiny freckles dotting his nose and his cheeks.

"You named him after me," Richie says, finally. His voice breaks; he hangs his head, sniffling.

"Was that okay?" Eddie asks. "I just thought, maybe—"

"Is this  _ okay?"  _ Richie repeats incredulously. He exhales shakily, then turns to look at Eddie again. He sits right on the edge of the hospital bed and kisses Eddie hard: on the lips first, then the forehead. "Eds, you named your  _ baby  _ after me."

_ "Our  _ baby," Eddie reminds him. That breaks open the waterworks, and Richie sobs, muffling the sound behind his hand. Shiloh's tiny brow creases briefly before smoothing out again. He yawns.

"Yeah," Richie chokes out, sniffling. He smiles when he looks down at Shiloh again and says, "Our baby."

"He's all okay?" Eddie asks.

"Oh, yes, hundred percent," Richie tells him, wiping at his face. "Shy-guy here is five pounds, five ounces, eighteen-point-two inches, with a head circumference of  _ twelve-point-six,  _ believe it or not. Lungs fully developed and just as strong as a full-term newborn, lucky duck."

"His lungs are okay," Eddie says quietly.

"Good and strong," Richie assures him. Shiloh frowns again, then fusses, taking a deep breath before squeaking and starting to whine. "Yeah, he's been doing that the past few minutes."

"He's hungry," Eddie says, even though he's not entirely sure how he knows that. He can just tell.

"Drop 'em, Kaspbrak," Richie says. Eddie just rolls his eyes, still smiling fondly when Richie tugs his blankets down and his hospital gown the rest of the way aside for him.

Guiding Shiloh to actually nurse is kind of insane, but Eddie's so fucking happy to have him back with him that he doesn't bother calling the nurse. There's nothing really to  _ do,  _ anyways, it's just a new sensation he's not even close to used to.

"I love you," Richie says. Eddie glances up at him; he's mildly surprised to find Richie looking at him and not Shiloh.

"What, me?" Eddie asks.

Richie nods vigorously. He reaches out and smoothes Eddie's hair back from his face before he tells him, "I'm just so fucking amazed by you. You're the coolest guy I've ever met and you're so fucking strong and brave and you grew us a  _ baby _ and you love  _ me.  _ Me, Eds,  _ me—" _

"Yeah, we've met," Eddie says. After a beat of surveying the bed, he tells Richie, "Get in here."

Richie raises an eyebrow skeptically, but he does as Eddie's requested, gingerly climbing up into the bed and sitting up right behind Eddie again, propping himself up against the pillows on the raised half of the bed. He drapes his arm around Eddie's shoulders and shifts him slightly so there's settled together more comfortably, like they're just sitting in bed at home.

Shiloh doesn't nurse for very long. He's so crazy small, Eddie doesn't know how he nursed as long as he did, anyways. Eddie draws him up when he's done, holding him snug against his chest.

A small hiccup jolts Shiloh's tiny body. It doesn't seem to bother him, but it makes Richie snort a laugh. After a beat, Shiloh burps softly, then makes another quiet squeak before closing his eyes again. Eddie watches his back slowly rise and fall as his baby lungs inflate and deflate; his small hands are curled up in fists, his knees drawn up close to his soft little belly underneath himself, wound back up into the fetal position.

"When can we go home?" Eddie asks. The hospital was never part of his plan at  _ all,  _ barring an emergency, which giving birth a month early  _ is. _ If there's nothing wrong with Shiloh, though, he wants to get out as soon as possible.

"They said two to three days, just to make sure he's got a low risk of infection, no jaundice, that he's staying warm enough and breathing well enough on his own," Richie informs him.

"So when is that?" Eddie asks. Richie counts on his hand.

"He was born at 5:48 AM on August 2nd," Richie murmurs. "So, they expect we can leave— They said on Wednesday, probably, around three o'clock in the afternoon, if he keeps doing well. That'll be— That's the fifth."

Eddie nods. It makes his heart pound, but he's fucking exhausted and he'd rather be surrounded by medicine and medical equipment if Shiloh  _ does  _ need something,  _ anything. _

Eddie yawns. Richie strokes his hair back from his face, rubbing the back of his head lightly before scratching over his scalp. Eddie sighs, leaning into the touch, letting his eyes drift shift.

In the next beat, his eyes snap back open. He looks down to Shiloh where he's sleeping calmly. His back is still falling and rising evenly, falling and rising, falling and rising. Eddie gently cradles the back of his head in his hand and lets the emotions surge up, filling his chest and his belly and his head until he's delirious with it. He dips his head to kiss the top of Shiloh's.

"Thank you," Eddie says quietly. Richie keeps lightly scratching his scalp without stopping; he pushes their temples together, leaning into one another.

"Get some sleep," Richie suggests, just as soft. Eddie wants to keep watching Shiloh, but he doesn't really have a choice after nearly three straight days of no sleep, over a full day's worth of which he was either actively in labor or birthing the child currently sleeping peacefully on his chest.

"If I fall asleep, move him so I don't crush him," Eddie tells him tiredly. "And make sure his face isn't down while he sleeps. And—"

"He'll make it through your nap," Richie assures him. "Eds, babe,  _ sleep.  _ I promise you, we'll both be here when you wake up. Right,  _ right  _ here."

Eddie nods, tipping his head to the side to rest against Richie's shoulder. He gingerly shifts himself down a bit so he's comfortably supported.

He settles his hand over Shiloh's warm back and his soft hair, fingers spanning the length of his body and keeping him safe and securely in place on his chest. His fucking  _ bones  _ ache with the need to keep him close and safe.

"Sleep," Richie murmurs softly again. "Relax, Eds. I gotcha."

Eddie fights sleep as long as he can, but he gives in without even realizing, eventually. The last thing he sees before slipping into sleep is the top of Shiloh's head, the soft slope of his nose and the bow curve of his mouth, the freckles across his face and the birthmark on his left leg and the way his fingers flex, tiny joints bending as he stretches in his sleep. Eddie smiles as he joins him.


	10. google search: is it normal for my friends to cry more than i do after my baby is born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiloh doesn't really sleep for longer than a couple of hours at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed i added another chapter!! that's because i was going to have all the losers in this chapter but it was getting so long already i decided to split it up!! enjoy!!

Shiloh doesn't really sleep for longer than a couple of hours at a time. He also wants to eat over a dozen times a day, hates being more than a foot from either of them, and makes at least ten new noises every thirty seconds for Eddie to panic over. His head is still a sort of weird shape and his eyes are so bright blue they look artificial.

Eddie  _ loves  _ him. He can't get enough of him. He hates letting Shiloh leave the room, especially if it's without either of them; the first time he wakes up and Shiloh's been taken out of the room while he slept, he got so worked up he gave himself a panic attack and Richie had to be called back in from the NICU to help calm him down. They keep Shiloh's NICU appointment schedule right next to his feeding log on Eddie's table so he can keep reminding himself of when he's going to be taken again.

He's also particularly obsessed with Richie and Shiloh together. Birthing a child is a particularly horrible sort of pain that doesn't subside quickly; he even still gets weird contractions that Dr. Abrams assures him are his insides slowly going back to normal and shrinking back to their non-pregnancy size bit by bit. All that means, though, that Eddie can't spend nearly as much time holding Shiloh as he wants to, and that's when Richie takes over for him.

The first time he actively witnesses them alone together, he actually cries. The late afternoon sun on Sunday, the first day of Shiloh's life, is bright and August-orange when Eddie wakes up, slow and groggy as he forces his eyes open. Richie's standing by the window, wearing a new clean pair of scrub pants and no shirt; Shiloh is resting on his chest, curled up under his hands. He's dwarfed by them, one hand spread across his back, his neck, the back of his head; the other's holding his curled-up legs in his cupped palm.

"Yeah, see?" Richie murmurs softly. He turns a little more towards the window, letting a bit of sunlight warm Shiloh's back. "You like that, don't you? You've never gotten to see sunlight before, have you, living in a cave like that."

Shiloh squirms a little, his tiny fists curled up by his cheeks. As Eddie watches him, he yawns, digging his face into Richie's bare chest before opening his eyes again. His tiny eyebrows furrow when his hair falls in his face, his freckled nose scrunching up, but Richie notices before it bothers him. He so,  _ so _ carefully shifts his grip so he's holding Shiloh to his chest with one big hand, the other gently sweeping the curls up and back, out of the way. His head's bowed so close that Eddie can see their hair is the exact same shade of black; it makes his chest seize.

"There we go," Richie says. He pushes his glasses back up his nose before cupping the back of Shiloh's head in his hand. He runs his thumb over his cheek in small, slow circles; Shiloh blinks his eyes open again, then sneezes. "Aw, hey, sneezy. You're gonna wake up your dad. He's put a lot of work into getting you here, least you can do is let him sleep a  _ little _ bit longer."

Eddie's nose prickles and the backs of his eyes burn. When he blinks, hot tears spill down his face without warning. Shiloh's hands open and close as he looks up towards Richie. He can't actually see much of anything clearly just yet, but Richie smiles down at him, his whole face breaking open brighter than the sunshine.

"Hey, you," Richie says softly. "I'm so excited to meet you. Gotta be honest, I've been going out of my mind wanting to hold you. This is pretty much the greatest day of my life."

Shiloh whimpers softly, little hiccups of sound that come out as he wriggles against Richie's bare skin, rubbing his face into his chest. Richie rubs the back of head in slow circles with his thumb. Eddie's hypnotized watching the two of them.

He realizes in a rush that he's glad he made the choice he did. The terror he felt when he first found out he was pregnant is a much worse kind of fear than what he's feeling now. Then, he was horrified by what his body was doing (which is, he thinks, more valid now than ever) and shocked that this was happening at all. He couldn't actually visualize a baby then, let alone  _ this  _ baby who is, objectively (Eddie insists), a perfect baby.

Now, he has the baby. The end product of everything he's had to do is finally here. Every panic attack over his body looking strange, every day spent puking his guts out, every minute of the entire day he spent in labor, every second, all of it, has all been leading to this. To Shiloh. And Eddie's so fucking scared, but he's scared  _ for  _ him. Scared the world is going to be too cruel, scared he's going to fuck up, scared of a million unknown influences out of his control that might potentially have some future effect on his son.

_ His  _ son.  _ Their  _ son. He's  _ their  _ responsibility and theirs  _ alone.  _ He knew that logically, before, but it's a different thing when Shiloh's actually here to take care of. This living person weighs barely five pounds and can't lift his own head or form a coherent thought, and it's Richie and Eddie's sole responsibility to keep him alive.  _ Alive.  _ And people are just going to let them go home with the expectation that they're capable of doing this when they've  _ never  _ done it before.

Eddie's working himself up towards a panic attack when Shiloh sneezes again, smacking his face into Richie's chest. He scrunches his nose up, but ultimately doesn't cry; Richie snorts a laugh as the impact makes Shiloh sneeze again.

"There you go," he murmurs. Eddie's heartbeat starts slowing down as he watches them.

It's not gonna be easy, he realizes, but maybe they'll figure it out. There's no morals or discipline or anything right now anyways. They have to feed him and clean him and keep him happy and healthy and love him, and Eddie thinks they're fully capable of doing those things long enough that they'll figure it out. Fake it 'til they make it.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Richie says. It takes Eddie a second to realize he's talking to him; he snaps his eyes up to look at him to find Richie's already smiling. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I fucked a barbell," Eddie answers, which makes Richie snort and choke on a laugh again. Shiloh furrows his brow. "He looks pissed off."

"I'm poor company compared to you," Richie tells him. He gingerly shifts Shiloh around so he's cradled in the crook of his arm instead, his head and neck supported by his elbow. "Isn't that right? He gives you life and food and what do I give you?"

Shiloh whines, turning his face into Richie's chest again. Richie sighs, smiling when he lifts his head to look at Eddie. Eddie just holds his hands out.

"Insult to injury," Richie says. He comes back to Eddie's bedside, helping him scoot up with one arm until he's propped upright against his pillows. He helps him out of his sleep shirt so Shiloh can nurse without any barriers. "Good thing you've got such tiny little titties, since his belly's the size of a marble."

"And I love your big titties," Eddie replies. Richie presses a loud smacking kiss to his cheek. "Is his stomach really that small?"

"Yes, sir," Richie tells him. He grabs the chair behind him and drags it over so he can sit beside Eddie's bed and watch the two of them.

Shiloh keeps his eyes open, looking up in Eddie’s direction. He knows logically that Shiloh can't see, he  _ knows  _ that, but he still says, "Hi, honey. Good to see you again."

Richie leans in to press his forehead to Eddie's upper arm. He leaves a kiss there before leaning back to pull his phone out of his pocket; a thrill of realization shivers through Eddie as he finally makes himself acknowledge that they can't just keep Shiloh to themselves until he turns eighteen. People will probably want to meet him earlier, and presumably today, possibly tomorrow.

"That's Billy," Richie tells him, tapping his passcode into his phone. It's been changed; Eddie watches him input 0802 and hit  _ enter,  _ and his chest  _ aches.  _ "Asking if you're up for visitors today. Survey says?"

Eddie hesitates.

"You gave birth to a human person today," Richie reminds him. "You can do anything you want, guilt-free. Hell, if you wanted to rob a bank right now, I'd drive your fucking getaway car, baby. Anything for you."

"You wouldn't do that on a normal day?" Eddie asks. Shiloh kicks him softly in the chest with one leg, his foot jerking out. Eddie catches him with his fingers around his tiny ankle, tucking his leg back into place between them.

"I would," Richie says without hesitation. "I just meant I'd go right now if you asked. Even though I'm kinda busy."

"Such a sacrifice," Eddie says. Richie leans over him to tip his face up with a finger under his chin. He kisses him softly before pulling back.

"That's love, baby," Richie tells him. It ignites such a deep warmth in Eddie's chest. When Richie turns away from him, it's just to smile down at Shiloh, watching his tiny furrowed brow and his small mouth and his bright eyes. He strokes Shiloh's belly with one fingertip in a slow circle. "How's he doing?"

"Like he's been doing it his whole life," Eddie says. Richie laughs, eyes staying down on Shiloh as he tweaks his heel and lets him go.

"Almost like," Richie replies. He pushes Eddie's hair back from his eyes, gently stroking it back from his face. "He slept for a little while while you did but he's been up for a bit now. Just looking around. Everything's brand new, so I tried to introduce some stuff to him, but he's not really picking it up yet, I don't know what it is."

"Oh, no, he takes after you," Eddie says, smiling. Richie flicks him on the forehead before kissing him in the same spot. "You can tell Bill he can come visit with Mikey tomorrow morning."

"Yeah?" Richie asks. Eddie nods, turning his head back down to watch Shiloh turn his face away from him. He eases him up into his palms and lifts him up so Richie can take him again.

"Yeah," Eddie says. He's not even upset to let Shiloh go for now; he just wants to watch them together a while longer. "They can all come tomorrow if they want. But they have to come in pairs of two, nobody's allowed to stay longer than an hour, and  _ everybody's  _ scrubbing down with the hospital's sanitizer  _ and  _ my soap when they get here."

"Wouldn't expect any less," Richie tells him. He pulls Shiloh up to his face, kissing him on the forehead ten times in succession; Eddie leans back against his pillows and just watches him, still worn down with exhaustion and pain dulled by medication.

"What have you told them so far?" Eddie asks.

Richie makes a goofy kissing noise down at Shiloh before answering, "Just that he's healthy, plus his height and his weight. I figured you'd wanna be awake for pictures or name-sharing."

"Thanks," Eddie says. His tone conveys mild surprise; Richie turns to him with a raised eyebrow. "Not that I thought you would. I just thought you wouldn't be able to control yourself and you'd forget. I wasn't even upset, I'd just assumed." Richie sticks his tongue out, his face pink. Eddie sticks his tongue out right back.

"I'm gonna tell  _ everyone  _ now," Richie says. "I'm sending out birth announcements without you,  _ watch me." _

"You wouldn't dare," Eddie challenges him. Richie gasps, looking down to Shiloh.

"Did you hear that?" Richie asks. "Your dad threw down the  _ gauntlet _ on me."

Eddie's about to shoot another joke back, but his brain stalls on  _ your dad.  _ Richie had said it before, too, but Eddie had been too distracted by the  _ way _ he was talking to Shiloh to really process the  _ what.  _ He's always thought of  _ dads  _ in the abstract; he doesn't remember much of his own, not that his mom ever talked about him. To Eddie, a dad is someone who has a stupid mustache and makes dumb jokes and shit like that. Sitcom dads. He's never thought of what it'd feel like to actually  _ be  _ someone's dad, but he is now. He's a dad. He's a child's dad,  _ this child's _ dad, and he feels the most secure he's ever been in this to date.

Shiloh is comfortably tucked in the crook of Richie's elbow, head propped up against his upper arm. The way Richie's holding him is so casual and comfortable already, because Richie's his dad, too. Richie Tozier, the man who once got so drunk he tried to convince Eddie to do shots of mouthwash thinking it was Bombay Sapphire, is a father. A life  _ relies  _ on the two of them.  _ Them.  _ Because they're dads.  _ Together. _

"Did we lose you, Eds?" Richie asks, just as Shiloh yawns, his little mouth opening, his tiny arms and legs stretching. Richie looks down to him, a grin breaking onto his face. "Oh, you think  _ you're  _ tired."

"I was just thinking about how weird it is that I'm somebody's dad," Eddie tells him. Richie glances up at him again.

"Oh, I get you," Richie says. He takes Shiloh back to his bassinet and lays him down on his blanket, carefully swaddling him back up in the hospital blanket as he says, "He's like a real-life Tamagotchi. We have to keep him alive and be  _ fathers.  _ Isn't that crazy? I'm gonna start wearing socks with sandals, I think. Really lean into it."

Eddie huffs a laugh. Richie tugs one of the smallest hats Mike had knit for them out of Eddie's duffel bag before pulling it snugly over Shiloh's head.

"No more skin-to-skin," Richie says. He lifts Shiloh up, putting the bundle of him back into the crook of his arm. He just looks like a bunch of pink and teal fabric with a tiny face in the middle. "Gotta regulate your temperatures, Shy-guy. Your head's too big to do it on your own yet, you little lollipop."

"Be nice to him," Eddie admonishes. "He still needed another month to get weight on him. It's my fault, not his."

Richie doesn't make a joke back. Instead, he looks up to Eddie, brow furrowed, frowning. "Nothing is your  _ fault,  _ Eds. Sometimes babies are born earlier than their due date, it's not your fault, it just happens."

"I was doing everything right, though," Eddie argues. "Or I  _ thought,  _ because clearly—"

"Hey, no, no," Richie cuts him off. "Not even gonna entertain this, babe, sorry. I watched you carry this baby for months and then spend an entire day in pain so you could bring him here and he's  _ perfect,  _ Eddie." The backs of Eddie's eyes burn just as a couple of tears slip down Richie's smiling face. "He's healthy and strong — and so cute, Eds, you should see some of the uggos sleeping near him in the hospital nursery — and  _ you  _ did all that. The only thing that's  _ your  _ fault is giving us the best baby ever and also making me the happiest guy ever."

Eddie can't help but smile at him, his heart hammering. His hormones are whacked out and he's fucked up on pain  _ and  _ his pain medication, but he still manages to say through the tears that start falling fast, "Second happiest after me."

"I'll allow it just this once," Richie says. "You get a pass right now for giving birth today, but that free ride ends at midnight, buddy."

"Whatever will I do," Eddie says, more than asks. Richie sits on the edge of the bed next to him and kisses him softly. He doesn't mean to, but Eddie yawns into the kiss.

"I can text them all about tomorrow," Richie tells him. "Get some more sleep, okay? I'll wake you up if he needs you again, don't worry. I got everything under control."

Eddie reaches out to pull the edge of the blankets away from Shiloh's face, making sure they're not covering his mouth. He smiles. "I know you do."

* * *

Eddie sleeps on and off through Sunday and into Monday; he wakes up on his own, now and then. Other times, Richie will gently judge him awake before passing Shiloh off to him. Now and then, he wakes up to a doctor or a nurse asking him questions or checking his vitals or taking Shiloh for another appointment with Richie.

The first night, against the nurse's recommendation, they keep Shiloh in the room with them. She suggested that they bring him to the nursery instead so they can get sleep, but Eddie's hesitant to let him out of his sight after months of having him inside his body. He sleeps with his hand on the edge of the bassinet, his fingertips draped down into Shiloh's tiny open palm.

Once, when he wakes up around three in the morning, Shiloh's not actually in the bassinet. Eddie only has a brief moment of panic before he turns to see Richie sitting up in the chair by the window and the room's empty bed. He's dozing, head bobbing as he jerks awake, Shiloh fast asleep in his arms.

As Eddie watches, Richie yawns, shifts Shiloh around gingerly, and then kisses him absently on the forehead. He slouches back down, after a beat, yawning again and letting his eyes drift closed. Eddie smiles a little bit, the corners of his lips twitching up, before he does the same.

He only has to fully wake up for the day once nine o'clock rolls around, since that's when visiting hours start and Bill texted already to say that he and Mike are on their way. Stan and Patty are scheduled to come around noon, and Ben and Bev are meant to come at three. Eddie's not intending to let anyone else around Shiloh right now unless strictly necessary. Eddie only really wants to be around people he's comfortable with, and that circle has only very recently expanded to include an eighth person, who also happens to be his infant son. Before that was Patty; before  _ her,  _ he was a little boy, meeting Mike and Ben and Bev for the first time.

Richie's just taking Shiloh back from Eddie to swaddle him again when there's a soft knock at the door. Eddie tugs the old worn shirt Richie let him borrow back into place before calling, "Come in."

Donna's the one who pushes the door open, sticking her head in to ask, "Ready for your first visitors, Eddie?"

"Send in the clowns," Richie exclaims, swaddling Shiloh in his bassinet again. Donna smiles, but she still looks to Eddie.

"Yeah, send them in," Eddie tells her. She pushes the door open all the way and steps back to let Bill in first, Mike right behind him.

Bill freezes only two steps into the room, eyes locked on Shiloh in Richie's arms. He stares at him, just for a moment, and Shiloh almost even stares back, unfocused eyes landing somewhere near Bill and Mike in the doorway.

"Oh, my  _ God,"  _ Bill says softly. Eddie watches him, tracking his every move and the wide smile spreading across his face as he goes to Richie and gets a closer look at Shiloh. After a moment, he turns to Eddie, eyes sparkling. "I'm so sorry, I— How're you feeling, Ed—"

"Sanitize and wash your hands before touching him," Eddie cuts him off. Mike laughs, pumping sanitizer from the dispenser on the wall. Bill nearly trips while backtracking to do the same.

"What's his name?" Mike asks, as Bill takes the first turn washing his hands with soap in the little bathroom attached to their hospital room.

Eddie looks to Richie, but Richie just jerks his chin back in Mike's direction as he tugs Shiloh's hat back down into place. Shiloh squirms, his tiny fists pushing at the confines of his blankets for a moment before he sneezes.

"You can tell 'em," Richie says, as Bill darts back into the room and demands,  _ "Was that him?" _

"His name is Shiloh," Eddie tells them. Mike smiles, clapping his hand down on Eddie's shoulder. He leaves it there, a warm weight; Eddie smiles back up at him.

"What's his middle name?" Bill asks. "Shiloh what?"

"Richard," Eddie says. Bill looks to Richie with an expression Eddie can't see from this angle, but whatever it is makes Richie tear up and make a face, waving Bill off. Bill hugs him anyways, right above Shiloh's bassinet, gripping him tight. Richie muffles his tears in Bill's hair.

"Hey," Mike says softly. Eddie looks up at him just as Mike squeezes his shoulder. "You did a good job, Eds."

Eddie huffs a laugh, looking away. Mike sits in the chair Richie's only recently vacated, rubbing Eddie's shoulder before sliding his hand down his arm to tangle their fingers together instead. He bounces their hands together on the hospital bed mattress once, then twice; when Eddie looks up at him, he's grinning.

"Can I get the week off?" Eddie asks. Mike starts laughing as Eddie continues, "I know we try to ask at least two weeks in advance, but I had something come up."

Mike raises an eyebrow, still half-laughing when he says, "I don't know, man. We put that policy in place for a reason. You sure you can't just tough this one out, head back to the garage with me when Billy and I go?"

"I could try," Eddie says. "But I can't make any promises about my quality of work."

Mike bounces their hands again, making Eddie smile before he says, "But seriously, man, take all the time you need. I got everything under control, Billy's helping out up front and he even focuses on the job some of the time."

"Hey," Bill exclaims softly. The timing didn't work for him to exclaim properly, since Richie's just now easing Shiloh into his hands. Bill forgets what he's upset about as he finally gets Shiloh in his arms. He gingerly shifts him backwards like he's a delicate bomb, shuffling him until he's tucked up against his chest.

"Aw, he's a natural," Richie says. "Look at him, he's going into rigor mortis."

"Be nice to me," Bill admonishes him. He lifts his arms and bows his head until he's right over Shiloh's face, rocking him back and forth gently. "Hi, Shiloh. Hi. Oh, my God. Oh, hi." Bill sniffles. Shiloh yawns, stretching out in his blankets before turning his face into Bill's shirt. He starts crying in earnest almost immediately.

"Oh, whoop," Richie says, putting his arm around Bill's shoulders and pulling him in for a side-hug. Bill pushes his forehead into Shiloh's, openly crying and laughing, all at the same time.

"Mike, come see," Bill says. Mike gives Eddie's hand an apologetic squeeze before he gets up to sanitize and wash his hands again before letting Bill pass Shiloh off into his hands.

Bill keeps crying, even though he doesn't even  _ have  _ the baby anymore. When Mike puts Shiloh in the crook of his arm, the difference in their sizes is almost comically drastic; Eddie smiles, but it just makes Bill cry harder.

"Hey there," Mike says down to Shiloh. Richie pulls Bill into a hug, letting him cry into his chest. "Don't worry about him, he's like this all the time. You know how artists get."

"Fuck you," Bill says tearfully backwards at him. He turns to Mike smiling in spite of his words, turning his face into Mike's shoulder before leaning into him. The two of them looking down at Shiloh makes Eddie's heart clench; Richie must feel it, too, because he goes to Eddie's side, taking his hand and kissing the back of it.

"Looks like they're next," Richie says.

Bill starts crying all over again as Mike says too loudly, "Well, maybe—" and startles Shiloh. He whines, squirming a little, eyes closing and his brow furrows; Bill takes him back, but Richie just slides in and scoops Shiloh up and out.

"Alright, he's a baby, not a hot potato," Richie admonishes them, smiling. He takes Shiloh back to Eddie and passes him off easily. Eddie hadn't realized how accustomed they'd already come to holding and carrying him until he watches Bill and Mike struggle to adapt to it.

"I mean, we  _ could _ be next," Mike says, once Shiloh's calmed down with Eddie and Richie's taken his hat off to reveal the curls that spill out of it. "We've tossed the idea around."

"I'm gonna use this on everyone today," Richie says to Eddie, grinning. Eddie rolls his eyes as he unravels Shiloh from his bundle to lay him on his chest again, his blanket draped over him and Eddie's chest. "I think it might actually work."

"Keep dreaming," Bill tells him. "Everyone else knows how to use condoms."

"Oof,  _ ouch,"  _ Richie replies, one hand dramatically laid over his heart. "I know  _ how  _ to use one, Billy. You cut them open with the scissors, then—"

Eddie snorts a laugh, jostling Shiloh and making him hiccup. Richie smoothes a hand over Shiloh's back absently; it makes a hum run under Eddie's skin. Something like comfort, and contentment. Something casual that settles into his bone marrow.

"It's 10:30," Richie comments casually. Eddie whips his head around to Bill and Mike, pointing at them.

"It's been longer than an hour," he says firmly. He's tired, his body still doing that weird stupid contracting  _ thing,  _ and he wants to rest before Stan and Patty get here, as much as he doesn't want Bill and Mike to leave.

"Alright, party's over," Richie says, lightly golf-clapping his hands together so he doesn't startle Shiloh again. "Out, out, out. You don't have to go home but you—"

"Stop, stop riffing, we're going," Bill cuts him off. He comes over to Shiloh again before they leave, kissing the back of his head; Mike does the same.

"See you tomorrow, buddy," Mike says quietly to him. He ruffles his hair gently before doing the same to Eddie. "And I  _ better  _ see you at work before noon, Eds. No excuses."

"For sure," Eddie says. "Just spill my guts all over the floor for you."

"Oh, Christ," Bill comments as Richie blanches, rubbing at his face.

"It's not unlike what actually happened," Richie tells them. "It was  _ gruesome.  _ It was like an Eli Roth—"

"Okay, enough," Eddie cuts him off. "Save the story for some time when it doesn't feel so raw."

"Literally," Richie says. "Raw meat."

"Stop," Mike says. "Right there. Stop. We found the line and crossed it in seconds, stop it."

"I'm not gonna change just because I'm a dad," Richie warns him. He cups the back of Shiloh's head in his hand, radiating heat where he's bowed over Eddie. "If anything, this is worse. I'm gonna raise him to be  _ just  _ like us."

"Wh—  _ Us?"  _ Eddie asks incredulously. "I'm well-beha—"

"Oh, what a load of shit," Bill interrupts him. "You're  _ just  _ as bad as he is, if not worse. You're a  _ menace." _

"Hey, whoa, he's invulnerable to mockery for two-to-four business weeks at  _ least,"  _ Richie says as Eddie laughs.

"Our Lyft is here, we gotta go," Mike says. Bill turns back to Eddie and Richie regretfully before he kisses the back of Shiloh's head again, then Eddie's cheek.

"I'm so proud of you," Bill says. It's so deeply warm and sincere that it fills Eddie up on the inside until he smiles. "You did amazing. Good job. I knew you'd be able to do it, I love you so much, you know?"

"Yeah," Eddie says. He leans into Bill's half-hug as they try not to squish Shiloh between them. "Love you, too, man."

Bill gives him a smile before he and Mike take their leave. Richie cups the back of Shiloh's head in his head again once they're gone, stroking his hair.

"Good work, little guy," Richie says. He kisses Eddie on the temple and adds, "And you, big guy. Proud of you."

"Please," Eddie says, wiping at his eyes. "I'm already overwhelmed."

"Get some rest," Richie tells him. "You've still got over an hour until Stan and Patty are gonna get here, get some sleep."

Eddie nods, looking back down to Shiloh. He's fallen asleep again on Eddie's chest, cheek pressed to the hollow beneath his throat, hands curled up next to his head as his tiny chest rises and falls evenly. He runs the pad of his thumb over the shell of Shiloh's ear, unwilling to leave him even though he's exhausted. Richie kisses the top of his head again. He doesn't leave; instead, he sits on the edge of the bed beside him, leaning to get his arm around him and letting Eddie slump into his side, yawning. Richie pulls his legs up, letting his right ankle hook over Eddie's left.

"Love you," Richie says softly. Eddie tips his chin up for another kiss before turning his drowsy attention back down to Shiloh as he sleeps.


	11. google search: can cousins be irish twins if they're not siblings and also not actually blood related?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Eddie wakes up, his hand shoots out to Shiloh’s bassinet on instinct. He hears Richie laugh, so he blinks his eyes open, squinting.
> 
> “He’s fine, baby, chill out,” Richie says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't been updating (or posting much at all!) recently — I just wrote another book under my pseudonym and also, quarantine depression is very _very_ real lol whoops. Love you all!

When Eddie wakes up, his hand shoots out to Shiloh’s bassinet on instinct. He hears Richie laugh, so he blinks his eyes open, squinting.

“He’s fine, baby, chill out,” Richie says.

“You can’t call me  _ baby,”  _ Eddie grumbles, words slurred with post-nap bleariness. “We  _ have  _ a baby. It’s weird.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ weird,” Richie argues. When Eddie’s actually able to blink his eyes clear, he locates Richie sitting beside him, feet kicked up on Eddie’s bed and crossed at the ankles, Shiloh asleep across his chest. One of Richie’s big hands is holding him in place, his little face tucked under his throat, tiny mouth open as he breathes. Eddie just watches his back rise and fall, for a minute, underneath Richie’s hand.

“How’s he been?” Eddie finally gets himself to ask, snapping out of his zoned-out staring at their son.

“Picture-perfect,” Richie assures him. “Mostly slept. Woke up a couple times, I changed him once, and… Hmm. Oh,  _ oh,  _ he did this little— This little thing with with his face, like—” Richie tries to imitate whatever the face was, scrunching up his nose and his eyebrows. “D’you know what I mean? Like—” He scrunches his face up again.

“I know what you mean,” Eddie says, chest aching. He holds his hand out to Richie and beckons to him, and Richie goes easily, heaving himself up and to his feet.

Eddie’s heart is still pounding when Richie passes Shiloh down to him. He hooks his fingers in the slips between the buttons of Richie’s shirt, tugging him down into a deep kiss, opening his mouth and licking behind Richie’s teeth. One of Richie’s hands creeps between them to steady Shiloh where he’s held to Eddie’s chest.

“Fuck,” Eddie says into Richie’s mouth. Richie pulls back just as Eddie tells him, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, big guy,” Richie tells him. “What’s that about?”

“I just love you, dumbass,” Eddie replies. Richie laughs, his whole face lighting up. Eddie threads their fingers together before Richie can get away from him.

“I just love you, too,” Richie replies softly. He doesn’t push for more information, just leans back and takes his seat again.

Eddie drags his attention off of Richie to focus on Shiloh instead. He’s half-woken up in the transition between Richie’s chest and Eddie’s, but he’s still mostly-asleep, bright eyes blinking at Eddie for a moment before he makes a scrunching frown of a face at him.

_ “That,”  _ Richie near-exclaims. “That,  _ that’s  _ the face, see it?”

Eddie smiles down at Shiloh. “Yeah, I see it. Looks like you.”

Richie’s about to answer, but then his phone rings, vibrating as he tugs it out of his pocket. He says, “Oh, it’s Stan,” with so much excitement Eddie feels it in his own bones.

“Then answer it,” he tells him.

“Stan!” Richie’s already saying into the phone. “My man, where are you? You here yet?” He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Yeah, just— Go down the hall to the left and— Do you see the signs? Okay, so— Yup. Yup, just—”

There’s a gentle knock on the door, and Richie all but jumps to his feet. When he opens the door, Stan and Patty are on the other side, Stan’s phone still held to his ear.

“Hi,” Richie says, both to Stan’s face and into the phone. Stan hangs up on him. “Ouch.”

“Let me see!” Patty exclaims. Richie backs out of the way so he can let Stan and Patty into Eddie’s room; Patty blows right past him and beelines straight to Eddie, already strongly smelling of sanitizer and and disinfectant and antiseptic. Stan lingers to say something softly to Richie that Eddie can’t hear.

“Hey, Pat,” Eddie says, giving up on eavesdropping once Patty is right over his bed. Her hands twitch out, then back in towards herself. “Do you wanna hold him?”

“Can I?” she asks, more excited than Eddie thinks he’s  _ ever  _ seen her.

“Sure,” Eddie says. He tips Shiloh back slowly and lifts him up for Patty to take. “Just— Put your hands— Yeah, right under his head and neck, and— Perfect. Yeah, and you can take Richie’s seat, go ahead.”

“Screw you, too,” Richie says, interrupting whatever Stan’s saying. Stan pinches his wrist to get his attention back; Patty ignores them both to take Richie’s seat, as instructed.

“Oh,  _ look _ at him, Eddie,” Patty says emphatically. She’s got tears in her eyes when she tips Shiloh up closer to her face and repeats,  _ “Look.” _

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He wants to laugh at her, but he’s unexpectedly got tears in his eyes, too. “Fuck, Patty.”

“Sorry,” she laughs tearfully, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. “He’s just— It’s a lot.”

“Yeah, he sure is something, isn’t he?” Richie says. He comes up beside Eddie, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Who, Eddie or your son?” Stan asks.

“Yup,” Richie answers brightly, grinning. Eddie huffs a laugh, covering his face with his hands. “Aw, Eds, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you all sniffly.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie tells him without heat. Shiloh makes a soft sound, almost a hiccup, and both their attention snaps to him.

“Oh, shit, that was…” Stan starts to say. He trails off, then settles on, “…Unsettling.”

“Give ‘im over,” Richie says, holding his hands out over Eddie’s head. It makes Eddie’s heart jump again, to watch Richie’s instincts kick in like that, to see him moving so quickly to take their son from Patty and tuck him against his chest, rocking him a little as he settles back on his heels.

“What’s his name?” Patty asks. Richie taps Eddie on the shoulder in wordless permission to answer her as he turns away, pacing the length of the room and back, bouncing Shiloh as he goes and whispering softly to him. He’s so quiet Eddie can’t hear what he’s saying. With his painkillers, he zones out again, watching him go back and forth, trying to hear what he’s telling him. He thinks he might be singing.

“Eds?” Stan asks. Eddie looks to him, stomach jumping like he’s missed a step as he realizes he’d gotten distracted again.

“Sorry,” he says, but Patty just waves him off.

“Please, you look exhausted,” she tells him.

“Thanks—”

“That’s not what I—”

“Alright, okay,” Stan interrupts them, making Richie snort a laugh and break his rhythm.

“Sorry, I just…” Eddie trails off, then cycles his hand through the hair. “I just keep losing my train of thought.”

“You just had a baby,” Patty reminds him. “Lose all the trains you want, we’ll find ‘em for you.”

Eddie can’t help but smile when he says, “Thank you,” but then the tears well up again and he gets another knot in his throat. He chokes out,  _ “Fuck,”  _ and Stan laughs, leaning down over him for a gentle hug. Eddie clings to him, for a moment, before letting him go.

“No worries,” Stan assures him. Eddie nods, but he has to look away, after a moment, and blink the tears out of his eyes. “Do you feel ready to tell us his name now?”

“Oh, yeah, fuck, sorry,” Eddie says. “Shiloh Richard Kaspbrak.”

Richie motions dramatically to the name card in the front of Shiloh’s bassinet, drawing smiles out of Stan and Patty both. Patty’s hands fly up over her mouth, too, when she starts to cry again, wiping under her eyes.

“He didn’t name the kid after  _ you,”  _ Richie says, holding one arm open so Patty can go to him for a hug. He rubs her back, kissing the top of her head. “What’s with the waterworks?”

“It’s really nice,” Patty tells him. She sniffles, rubbing her face into Richie’s shirt, drawing another laugh out of him.

“It is really nice,” Stan comments. “I’m guessing your idea, Eds?”

“Guessed correctly,” Richie says.

“He’s not quite that self-centered,” Eddie assures them. Richie blows a kiss at him.

“Can I see him?” Stan asks, now that Shiloh’s quieted down and started fully ignoring everyone in favor of squeezing Richie’s fingers and sneezing.

“Yeah, go for it,” Richie says. He passes him over, and Stan takes him so easily.

“You’re a natural,” Eddie comments, before he can think better of it. Stan raises an eyebrow at him, then laughs, a little forced.

“That’s good to hear,” Stan says. “For the future.”

There’s a beat after he says it that lasts too long, almost uncomfortably. Eddie narrows his eyes at him and sees Richie doing the same out of his peripherals, trying to analyze Stan’s face. That’s not the place to start, Eddie knows that. Instead, he turns on Patty.

“What?” she asks.

“What’s going on?” Eddie demands. He can feel his face go hot, his emotions on a hair-trigger still. “What’re you—”

“No, don’t cry,” Stan cuts him off. “No, what the f—”

“I’m pregnant,” Patty tells them. Richie gasps so loudly it’s nearly a shout, but Eddie processes it in total shocked silence. His eyes dart to Shiloh in Stan’s arms, and his first thought is  _ cousins.  _ His baby’s not going to be alone like he was. He’ll have a friend from the start to look out for him.

“That’s such good news,” Eddie says. He swallows past the lump in his throat so he can laugh instead, sitting up with the intention of offering a hug to Stan, but Richie’s beat him to it. He wraps Stan and Shiloh up in a tight hug, rocking them back and forth, so Eddie turns on Patty instead. “Patty, that’s amazing—”

“I know, I’m so excited,” Patty interrupts him excitedly. She grabs his hand and says, “We only just found out a few weeks ago and we were planning to tell people before Shiloh but then— Well, he came early, so we couldn’t really do that. But we wanted you guys to know, I’m sorry, I wasn’t planning on telling you today and stealing your thunder but—”

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie tells her. “Don’t, don’t apologize, alright, they’re— I’m just—” He takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly. “They’ll be cousins. That’s a really nice thought, I didn’t really have anyone else around when I was little, until I met Bill and Rich.”

“And isn’t your life all the better for it?” Richie asks. His voice breaks halfway through; when Eddie looks up to him, he’s already actively crying, too.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It is.”

Stan walks the room with Shiloh before Patty insists on taking him back. Watching her with him makes his heart skip a beat, but watching  _ Stan  _ watch Patty with him makes him just… happy. He’s  _ happy.  _ His friends are having a baby,  _ he  _ had a baby, and his— his baby—

“Can I—” Eddie starts to ask, then stops. His eyes flick up to Richie, just for a second.

“Oop,” Richie says. “Baby time.” He turns to Patty and curls his fingers once, then twice. “Gimme the kid and nobody gets hurt, c’mon, go slow now…  _ That’s  _ it, nice handling, agent.”

“You’re never off,” Stan comments. Richie surrenders Shiloh over to Eddie with a wink down at him. Eddie hides his smile as he takes their son from him.

“Would you like to turn me off?” Richie asks. Stan swats him in the arm, but that’s where Eddie loses focus on them and brings his attention fully down to Shiloh again instead.

He’s awake again, unfocused eyes staring up near Eddie’s face as he squints against the light. Eddie strokes the pad of his thumb over a few freckles along the soft side of his nose, just to get him to crinkle it up again, before slowly swiping along to the tiny shell of his ear. The skin is so thin there that he can see the tiny veins running through it. There’s blood surging through him, because he has a heart and lungs and a tiny little  _ brain,  _ all of which Eddie’s spent the better part of a year growing for him.

Eddie kisses Shiloh on his hairline, where his forehead meets his curls and the edge of his hat. He takes the hat off and fluffs his hair out; he thinks it should feel better that way. Shiloh almost-smiles like he agrees. That’s also when he starts biting at Eddie with his gums and pushing his face into his chest, so he looks up to Richie, brow furrowed.

“Aw, I think visiting time might be up for now,” Richie tells them. He checks the time on his phone, then says, “You guys should probably head on out, anyways, Ben and Bev are on their way and we’ve gotta feed Shy  _ and  _ Eds before they get here.”

“Okay, well, don’t hesitate to call us if you need  _ anything  _ at all,” Patty says, taking Eddie’s face in her hands and kissing him on the cheek. He feels his face go pink again.

“Make sure Doris hasn’t killed Bill,” Richie jokes, opening his arms for hugs from Stan and Patty at the same time. They’re both smiling when he tugs them in, one on each side, and buries his head between theirs. “Ugh,  _ fuck,  _ I  _ love  _ you guys. I’m so fucking happy for us. Look at this, us being all adult. It’s fucking  _ crazy.” _

“And yet not fully grown,” Stan comments. “How many  _ fucks  _ did you just drop?”

“He doesn’t have object permanence, don’t worry,” Richie assures him. He wipes tears off his face when he pulls back; he tries to be surreptitious about it, but Eddie catches him anyways. “He won’t remember any of this.”

“I’m happy everything went well,” Stan tells Eddie when he hugs him, too. “You did an amazing job. He’s a beautiful kid.”

“Thanks, Stan,” Eddie says quietly. He hugs him back, as tight as he can. Stan’s grip tightens in response; he lingers a few moments longer than he normally would before releasing Eddie.

“We’ll run by the house,” Stan tells him. After a moment, he sniffles a little, his eyes going slightly glassy. Eddie looks up at him incredulously as he ducks back down for another hug. In Eddie’s ear, Stan whispers, “Not a  _ word.” _

“Promise,” Eddie whispers back. He feels Stan smile before he withdraws.

* * *

There’s not all that much time, really, before Ben and Bev are texting them that they’ve arrived at the hospital. Shiloh’s only just decided he’s finished eating when Richie’s phone goes off. He takes Shiloh anyways, passing his phone off to Eddie for him to answer instead.

When Eddie hits the power button on Richie’s phone, his lock screen lights up with a picture of Eddie sleeping, Shiloh on his chest, little eyes open and looking up at Eddie, albeit unfocused. He taps in  _ 0802 _ and sees his home screen, too: a picture of Shiloh in his bassinet, his name card visible in the shot.

Eddie can feel tears rolling down his face as he taps out directions and the room number to Bill. He swipes them away before Richie can see, setting his phone aside.

Luckily, he’s saved by the bell; Ben knocks on the door and pokes his head in without waiting for an all-clear. Bev scolds him quietly for that as Richie laughs loudly.

“Come in, fuck, get in here,” Richie tells them. He tips Shiloh up against his shoulder so he can burp him, beckoning to Bev and Ben with his other hand. “C’mon in, Benny, he’s not gonna bite, he doesn’t have teeth.”

“Oh, God, look at him,” Ben says, hushed. Bev directs him to the disinfectant on the wall before making her way to Eddie.

“How’re you feeling, bud?” Bev asks. Eddie shrugs.

“Not great,” he says.

“I can imagine,” she replies. She motions vaguely to her chest, then says, “How about here? Emotionally, you feeling good?”

“I mean, as good as I can be,” he tells her. “I burst into tears every thirty seconds and I want to kill every nurse who tries to take Shiloh away.”

“Oh, his name’s Shiloh?” Ben asks. His voice sounds so choked that Eddie’s genuinely concerned; he looks up to check on him to see his face go dark red, tears filling his eyes. Bev actually goes to him and helps him sit down in the chair Patty’s just left vacant.

“You alright?” Eddie asks.

“He’s so small,” Ben gives as an answer. He puts his head between his knees and exhales slowly. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

“He was hyperventilating in the car on the way here,” Bev tells them. Ben waves her off, but Eddie can see that he’s smiling, too. When he lifts his head, he’s full-on crying.

“Should…” Richie starts to say, then stops. “Do you want to hold him, or will that make your reactor core explode?”

“Oh, God,” Ben says, gasping. He inhales sharply, seemingly composing himself, then says, “Alright, I’m good, I’m good. Can I see him? Can— I promise I’m good.”

“I believe you, Benny,” Richie tells him. He still looks to Eddie, just with a tiny flick of his eyes in Eddie’s direction, but he gets all the approval he needs from Eddie’s face before passing Shiloh over to Ben.

Ben’s a natural with him, of  _ course,  _ taking him easily and smiling so wide and bright that Eddie’s sure it must hurt. After a beat, though, his face crumples again and he dissolves into tears again, escalating quickly towards sobbing.

“Sorry,  _ shit,”  _ he chokes out. Bev steps in and lifts Shiloh up and out of Ben’s hands.

“Hey, Ben, c’mere,” Richie says, reaching out to take Ben by the hand. He tugs him upright, then over to the corner by the window, where Eddie’s seen him looking out with Shiloh before. Neither he nor Bev can hear what they’re saying, so he gives up on listening and turns to Bev instead.

Bev seems to be having her own crisis, sitting in the chair Ben’s left and just staring right down at Shiloh. She doesn’t seem to be doing anything but staring down at him, situated between her legs; she’s cradling him in the crooks of her arms, fingers supporting his head, neck, and back, but she’s looking at him like she’s not even fully seeing him.

“Bev?” Eddie asks. Bev blinks, then looks up to him, brow furrowed. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Bev looks back to Shiloh and says, “Yeah, sorry, I was just… I didn’t think I wanted kids before. I’ve never actually considered it. But… I like him. He’s kind of cool, isn’t he?”

Eddie nods, then holds his hands out. Bev passes Shiloh over without needing to be actually asked. When he has his son again, Eddie sits up to prop him up against his shoulder and finish burping him.

“He  _ is _ cool,” Eddie tells him. “This is most of what he does.”

Shiloh burps near his ear, then hiccups. Eddie rubs his back slowly, his fingertips brushing the ends of his curls. The soft cooing noise Shiloh makes ends in another hiccup, then a soft whine as he turns his face back into Eddie’s throat again.

“Not so bad,” Bev comments quietly.

“Not so bad,” Eddie echoes. Bev leans in, pulling the blankets apart near Shiloh’s feet so she can put his heel in her hand, running her fingertip across the nonexistent arch of his little foot. She squeezes it, and he furrows his brow a little.

“Maybe not a bad idea,” Bev says, so low only Eddie can hear. He’s not even sure he’s supposed to, so he doesn’t comment on it.

“You chose his middle name?” Ben asks abruptly, turning away from Richie and the window towards Eddie. “What is it?”

“Richard,” Eddie tells him. Ben starts crying all over again.

“Couldn’t have eased him into it?” Richie asks, and all Eddie can do is laugh.


	12. google search: how do i become an expert at infant first aid overnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiloh blinks sleepily up at him, cheek smushed into Eddie's chest; he seems so small like this, so fragile, and Eddie’s terrified to bring him somewhere that doesn’t have doctors and nurses and medical machinery should anything go wrong.
> 
> At home, all there is is him and Richie and Shiloh. That’s _it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this very soft installment makes up for my hiatus!!!!!

“Are you sure he’s ready to come home with us?” Eddie asks.

Shiloh blinks sleepily up at him, cheek smushed into Eddie's chest; he seems so small like this, so fragile, and Eddie’s terrified to bring him somewhere that doesn’t have doctors and nurses and medical machinery should anything go wrong. At home, all there is is him and Richie and Shiloh. That’s  _ it. _

“He’s ready,” the nurse tells him. He doesn’t recognize her, and he’s not sure if that’s because they haven’t met yet, or because he’s met too many people in the hospital, and all the faces are starting to fall out of his brain. “You both are. It’s normal to have a little anxiety.”

Eddie snorts a half-laugh, directing his attention back down to Shiloh. He’s closed his eyes again, but only for a moment before he blinks and squints, brow furrowing. He makes a noise so small Eddie can barely hear it, a little gasp before he sighs. Eddie’s chest  _ hurts. _

“What if something happens?” Eddie asks.

“Babies are resilient,” the nurse tells him. “You’ll get more comfortable every day, don’t worry about it. Everyone goes through this.”

That’s not particularly reassuring. Eddie feels his hackles go up more than anything else, and he just stops paying attention to the nurse, focusing completely on Shiloh instead. He wishes Richie was here to make small talk with the nurse or something. He knows Richie would know exactly how he’s feeling just by looking at his face, but Richie’s down at their car putting in Shiloh’s new car seat. As it is, the nurse seems to get the vibes he’s dropping and pats his hand before she leaves.

As the door clicks shut, Shiloh makes another noise, more of a squeak this time, and Eddie refocuses.

“Hey,” Eddie says quietly. Shiloh’s eyes still aren’t focused, but they’ve started to darken already. Eddie’s hoping they land somewhere around Richie’s color, but he’s also hoping they’re something different from either of them.

The little things that Eddie’s been noticing in Shiloh that come from them are starting to meld together, difficult to individually distinguish anymore. His eyes are  _ his  _ eyes; his nose is  _ his  _ nose, and his face has become  _ his  _ face, not Richie’s and his combined. Just his. The more he settles, too, the more Eddie feels like he recognizes him. He looks down at Shiloh and thinks,  _ of course I know you, you’re my son,  _ and it doesn’t feel completely outrageous anymore. Shiloh is  _ his son,  _ and he’s his  _ dad,  _ and he’s about to take this helpless person back to their home to grow up. To actually  _ start  _ his life.

“Knock, knock,” Richie says at the door, sticking his head in. “You decent?”

“Has that ever mattered?” Eddie asks.

“Just making sure you’re comfortable.” Richie steps just inside the door and kicks it shut behind him. “How you feeling? Ready to head out?”

Eddie starts to nod, but then he hesitates. He’s not actually sure if he’s ready or not. He looks back to Shiloh as he sits up in his hospital bed, making sure not to jostle him too much. Shiloh’s not bothered by him moving at all; as much as his hackles were up with the nurse, he’s starting to become aware of how right she is. Babies  _ are  _ resilient, and they seem to alternate between being bothered by things and caring about absolutely nothing at all.

“I don’t know,” Eddie tells him.

“That’s okay,” Richie says. He comes and sits right beside him on the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. He kisses Eddie’s temple, his big hand cupping the side of Eddie’s face to hold him in place. Eddie just closes his eyes and sighs. “What’s eatin’ at you?”

“I’m scared to take him home,” Eddie admits. When he opens his eyes again, head tipped down, Shiloh’s looking back at him. He almost feels like they make eye contact, looking right at each other, really  _ seeing  _ each other. He exhales shakily. “What if he gets hurt? What if he just stops breathing, or he rolls over onto his face, or something’s wrong with— with one of his organs, you know? What if something’s wrong with his head? What if he can’t see, or if he can’t hear, or if—”

“Hey, hey,” Richie cuts him off softly. Eddie lets out a shuddering breath, exhaling roughly. His hands are full with Shiloh against his chest, so he can’t stop the tears that start spilling down his cheeks, out of his control.

_ “Fuck,”  _ Eddie curses, annoyed with himself, frustrated, starting to—

_ “Hey,”  _ Richie says again. He reaches up, grips Eddie’s jaw, his chin falling into the cradle between his thumb and his fingers. His palm’s warm, glowing hot all along Eddie’s throat and his face. He brings Eddie’s face up to make eye contact with him, locking on. Eddie feels  _ seen  _ again.

“I’m just so fucking—” Eddie starts to say, but he cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. “I don’t know. I don’t  _ know.” _

“You don’t have to know,” Richie tells him. The backs of Eddie’s eyes burn, and he leans in, letting his forehead push into Richie’s. “It’s okay. It’s  _ okay.” _

Eddie nods, just a minute movement of his head so they don’t fall away from each other. Richie’s thumb strokes soothing sweeps along Eddie’s cheekbone as he shushes him again, kissing his cheek. Belatedly, Eddie’s glad that Richie thought to shut the door behind himself; he’s embarrassed enough that he feels this way at all, let alone if some stranger saw him melting down over nothing.

“You can tell me anything,” Richie says. “And I mean that. Even if it’s just  _ I’m upset and I don’t know why,  _ you know? I  _ want  _ to know that stuff. You wanna know when it’s me, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says.

“It’s the same with you,” Richie says. “You’re my world, Eds. Well, you and Shy are, now. You’re my first priority and you mean everything to me,  _ everything.  _ You’re  _ not  _ alone in this, Eddie. You’re not alone.”

Eddie nods again. He catches his breath, closing his eyes again; the tears spill out, burning hot down his cheeks, but he almost feels relieved now. It’s like a  _ release. _

“Shit,” Eddie spits. Richie huffs a laugh, kissing his cheek again. “Fuck, I just… I don’t know. You know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Richie agrees. He pulls back to kiss Eddie on the forehead, cupping the back of his head, holding him there for just a moment. Eddie exhales, his shoulders relaxing, finally losing some of their tension.

“Okay,” Eddie says, eventually. “I think I’m ready to go.”

Richie holds out his hands, and Eddie turns Shiloh over to him, letting him scoop him and settle him against his shoulder. He holds him there tight with one of his big hands so he can use the other to grab Shiloh’s car seat and haul it up onto the table beside the bed. Eddie just sits at the edge of the bed and watches Richie work.

“Can I get a hand over here?” Richie asks. Eddie reaches in to pull the straps out of the way so Richie can settle Shiloh into the seat. The thing seems like it’s all cushion; Richie makes sure Shiloh’s head fits right in where it belongs, lines up all his limbs, but Eddie still hovers nervously. He looks so fucking  _ small  _ in the seat. The thing is  _ swallowing  _ him.

“What if he—”

“Hey,” Richie interrupts him. He points a finger at Eddie just for Eddie to slap it away, laughing. “Quit it with the  _ what ifs.  _ We have enough of those lying awake at night, knock it off.”

“I’ll save them for tonight, then,” Eddie says. Richie presses a smacking kiss to his cheek. “Alright,  _ alright,  _ strap him in. Make sure it’s tight but not— not  _ too  _ tight, okay, be careful— be  _ careful with his arms—” _

“He will have as many limbs at home as he has now,” Richie assures him. He lets Eddie take over the car seat anyways, checking the straps and the buckles himself. They’re all just fine, perfectly secure; Richie’s done well, and he  _ knew  _ Richie would do well, but still. He’s freaking out a little bit. He thinks he’s allowed.

“You don’t know that,” Eddie says. Richie  _ tsks  _ at him, scooping up the handle of the carrier. Eddie can’t help the sharp inhale of breath that he takes in, nervous.

“Seriously?” Richie asks. He laughs, sound a little nervous himself, and says, “I promise, Eds, I’m not gonna let anything happen to him. Really. I wouldn’t let him get hurt, I’d never.”

Eddie rubs his hands over his face, dragging them down for a second before he says, “I know. I’m sorry, I know.” He looks to Richie and sees the face of uncertainty looking back. “I mean it. I’m sorry, I know you’re not going to do anything wrong, I’m just— I’m so fucking nervous.”

Richie reaches out with his free hand, and Eddie takes it, standing from the hospital bed and letting Richie pull him into his hold. Eddie just presses his face into Richie’s chest, exhaling slowly. He relaxes again when Richie strokes his back through his thin shirt, over and over. When he opens his eyes and looks down, he can see Shiloh’s fallen asleep in the car seat, small mouth open, his face all slack and relaxed. As Eddie watches, Shiloh’s tiny fingers curl up, then release again.

“Ready to go home?” Richie asks. Eddie nods this time, so Richie withdraws and offers him his arm. “My liege.”

“Shut  _ up,”  _ Eddie says, and Richie laughs, kissing him one last time before separating to pick up Eddie’s bag with his other hand, slinging the strap up over his shoulder. All Eddie has to get down to the car is himself.

* * *

Logically, Eddie knows that Shiloh’s been exposed to everything and everyone in the hospital in the days since he’s been born. Logically, he knows that Shiloh’s going to have to experience the world and all that comes with that.  _ Logically,  _ he  _ knows  _ that he can’t protect Shiloh from everything. He doesn’t want to, in his  _ logical  _ brain, but he’s not feeling very logical right now.

“Richie, go  _ slow,”  _ Eddie says from the back seat for the fifth time. Richie looks up at him in the rear view mirror, and they make eye contact for a second before Richie’s eyes land back on the road.

“I’m going twenty-five, Eds,” Richie tells him. “Any slower and we’ll get ticketed for holding up traffic.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, mostly because Shiloh chooses that moment to sigh in his sleep, shifting his head just slightly. Eddie strokes his hair back from his face.

“We’re nearly home, anyways,” Richie says. “How’re you feeling? How’s he doing?”

“He’s still sleeping,” Eddie reports. Shiloh squints, so Eddie adds, “No, wait—” but then Shiloh yawns and closes his eyes again. “Never mind, still sleeping.”

“Loving the play-by-play,” Richie says. Eddie flips him off in the rear view; Richie just snorts a laugh. He takes a smooth left turn, but Eddie still grips the sides of the car seat, just in case. He’s not sure he’s actually doing anything to steady or secure Shiloh, but he feels like he needs to do  _ something. _

“And Honey and Doris are both in our room?” Eddie asks.

_ “Yes,  _ Bill said he shut the door nice and tight, and I’ll run in to check just in case,” Richie answers. He’s said it before, but Eddie appreciates his willingness to repeat and remind all the same. “That way we can feed Shy to Honey in our own time.”

Eddie takes it back. “You suck.”

“I know,” Richie says. He grins at him in the mirror. His next turn is onto their street, and Eddie’s racing heart starts to slow down a little bit, even though his knuckles are white from gripping the sides of the car seat so tightly.

The instant Eddie lays eyes on their house, he mostly forgets all the reasons he was scared to come home. The hospital feels so sterile and cold in his memory compared to actually being back in their home with his son, and he gets the realization all at once that they really are about to start Shiloh’s  _ life  _ when they walk in the front door. Even more shocking is that, as anxious as he is, he’s more  _ excited.  _ He’s more  _ happy. _

Richie parks, and Eddie exhales, relaxing.

“Want me to yank that stick out of your ass before we head in?” Richie asks. Eddie leans forward to thump him on the arm. It makes his whole body hurt, pain pulsing through his groin, but he’s used to that by now. It’s been days of slowly adjusting to the sharp ache of it; he knows it’ll take weeks to go away completely.

“Go check the house,” Eddie reminds him. Richie salutes him and blows them both a kiss before he leaves the car. He jogs across their lawn at an angle, yanking his keys out of his pocket as he goes, nearly tripping over his long legs when his ankles almost cross over each other. Eddie grins to himself, watching Richie fiddle his way into their house. It’s only once he’s out of view that Eddie turns back down to Shiloh, still sleeping.

Eddie slips his hand down over Shiloh’s chest, letting his fingers spread across the width of his body. He can feel the tiny rise and fall of his lungs as he breathes evenly. One of his hands slips up as he sleeps; when it bumps into Eddie’s ring finger, Shiloh wraps his fingers around it instinctively, clinging tight and strong to Eddie’s hand. Eddie drops his head down to kiss the crown of his head.

The front door opens again, Eddie hears it, so he starts to unfasten the car seat from its base. By the time Richie’s opening the back door of the car, he’s got the thing in his lap, starting to shift out the door.

“Alright, gimme the goods,” Richie says, in a not-bad impression of a Mafioso. Eddie hands the carrier over; he feels secure watching how careful Richie is, how deliberately he places his hands, how gingerly he lifts the seat out to make sure he doesn’t knock it into anything. The only bad part is that Shiloh has to let go of his hand, and Eddie  _ misses _ him like he’s not a yard away.

“Doris and Honey are in our room, the floors are clean with nothing to trip over, and the coast is clear,” Richie reports, offering Eddie his free hand to help him out of the car, too. He only lets go to slide Eddie’s duffle bag onto his shoulder; he takes Eddie’s hand again once he’s got it, and Eddie squeezes it tight. It almost makes up for losing Shiloh’s hand. “All’s well? Ready to head in?”

“Ready,” Eddie tells him. Richie squeezes his hand right back and tugs him up the walk. Eddie doesn’t trip, but it’s a close thing, since most of his attention is focused on watching Shiloh in the car seat, making sure he doesn’t swing too much, get shaken up too much, start to wake up—

“Alrighty, welcome home,” Richie announces, throwing their front door open wide. Shiloh doesn’t respond, still asleep, but Eddie feels his own heart trip in his chest. “I hope you like the place. Once you’re old enough to put up your own wallpaper, you can do whatever you want to your room.”

_ “Richie.” _

“Oh, like he’ll remember this,” Richie says. He shuts the front door softly behind them. When he passes behind Eddie, his hand grazes the small of his back. “Wanna take this?”

Eddie grabs the bag from him so Richie can take the car seat to the coffee table. He hesitates, because the part of his brain that wants to keep the house neat is telling him to take the bag to his room and unpack it, but his first priority isn’t himself or keeping the house neat or anything like that anymore. He finds he cares more about keeping an eye on Shiloh than he does about letting clutter build up, which, he didn’t think he’d  _ ever  _ feel that way about  _ anything.  _ It’s a little jarring.

“Oh, there you go,” Richie says, unbuckling Shiloh’s straps and wriggling his hands underneath his little body. “Much better, there we go, up and out.”

“Should we leave him in it?” Eddie asks, just as Richie lifts him out. Richie raises an eyebrow at him. “Never mind.”

“Do you want me to put him back?” Richie asks. Eddie shakes his head, fingers twitching at his side. He doesn’t know what he wants, he just knows he’s  _ itching  _ and he wants to do  _ something.  _ “Do you want him?”

Eddie hesitates, then nods. “Yeah, can I just—” He doesn’t know what he  _ just,  _ but he holds his hands out all the same.

“Yeah, of course,” Richie says. He tips his head down so he can look into Shiloh’s sleeping face, resting on his shoulder, round cheek smushed there just like it’d been smushed on Eddie’s earlier that morning at the hospital.

It just hits Eddie again that this is their son, and he smiles. Every time he thinks it, he feels steadier, happier. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of it.

“Hey,” Richie says to Shiloh. “Wanna go hang out with your dad? Get the grand tour while I unpack our stuff?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Eddie tells him. Richie scoffs, waving him off.

“What, and have the knowledge that your laundry was unwashed just fester inside your brain?” Richie asks. “No, thanks. I’ll just do it now.”

“I don’t mean to be—”

“Knock it off, Eds,” Richie reminds him, hoisting up Eddie’s bag again. “Nothing to be sorry for. You just do whatever you need to do and know I’m here, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. He can’t help how much he’s smiling when Richie tips Shiloh onto his back in his hands. Richie takes a moment to just look down at him before he passes him over. Every time they pass him off, it gets easier; Eddie had thought he might finally get the hang of it just in time for Shiloh to start walking, maybe, but at this pace, he’ll be an old pro by the end of next week.

Richie disappears down the hall to their bedroom. His voice drifts back, unintelligible as he talks to Doris and Honey. Knowing Richie, he’s probably filling them in on his last few days.

Shiloh keeps sleeping, so Eddie decides to save the grand tour of their house for later. Even though — as Richie pointed out — Shiloh’s not going to remember any of this, he wants to do it with Richie anyways. He wants to share as many of Shiloh’s firsts with Richie as he can, actually.

Now that Richie’s out of the room and Shiloh and Eddie are alone, he starts feeling antsy again. He doesn’t like having the three of them separated; putting this much space between him, Shiloh, and Richie feels wrong, deep in his chest, in a way he’s never felt before. He’s just started associating these dramatic new feelings with parenthood. He just didn’t expect that the emotions would be carving out such deep chunks of his chest all the time like this.

Eddie lifts Shiloh up against his shoulder. His warm weight seeps in there, and Eddie takes him to the nursery. He’s nervous to walk around with him like this; nobody’s watching him, nobody has an eye on him, nobody is there if something goes wrong.

He reminds himself that that’s not true: Richie’s here.

He stops to knock on their bedroom door. He hears Richie’s stream-of-consciousness babbling to Doris and Honey stop mid-sentence.

“You alright, Eds?” Richie calls.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, just barely raising his voice. He checks Shiloh, just to make sure he’s still sleeping, before he adds, “Can you come out here a sec?”

He hears a  _ thump,  _ then something gets shuffled. Honey lets out a soft  _ whuff. _ Eddie can hear Doris meowing angrily at Richie before the door opens a crack and Richie slips through the tiny opening.

“Sorry,” Richie says, squeezing himself into the hallway. He closes the door quietly behind himself. “Doris has decided to become an escape artist out of spite. What’s up?”

“I just didn’t want to be by myself,” Eddie says. It’s not quite everything, but he thinks Richie gets it, anyways. “Can you come sit with us?”

Richie smiles when Eddie says  _ us,  _ and tells him, “Yeah, Eds, of course.”

A warm feeling spreads through Eddie like sunshine melting over grass when the clouds float away. Richie’s hand at the small of his back is deeply grounding, escorting him to the nursery where Eddie had sat only days ago, thinking about how terrified he was of exactly this. Of how  _ excited  _ he was of exactly this. He just keeps smiling.

“Take a seat, big guy,” Richie tells him, holding the back of the glider so Eddie can sit. The thing doesn’t slide too much as Eddie settles. He leans back, maneuvering Shiloh with steady hands until he can lay across his chest, his head dipping into the hollow beneath Eddie’s throat. He can feel his warm breath spreading across his skin.

Richie drags the armchair over from the corner and sits beside him, kicking his feet up next to Eddie’s on the sliding ottoman in front of the glider. He rolls his head along the back cushion of the chair, smiling so wide at Eddie and Shiloh that Eddie thinks he can feel what Richie’s feeling, for a moment, it’s so  _ strong. _

“I love you,” Richie says, voice bright, nearly broken. He grins and wipes at his face. “Eds, y’know, I just love you both so much. I’m so happy right now, I feel like I’m gonna explode.”

“I get it,” Eddie says. He lets his own head fall back against the cushion at the top of the glider. When he smiles back, Richie reaches out and lets his hand fall over Eddie’s on Shiloh’s back. His thumb rubs a slow circle there, over the fine bones in the back of Eddie’s strong hands. He feels heavy, his head drooping a little bit, and he yawns.

“Big day,” Richie comments. Eddie frowns at him, brow furrowing. “No, I mean it! Big day. Just rest your eyes for a second, bud. I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”

Eddie smiles back, watching Richie’s face for just another beat longer before he looks back down to Shiloh. He thinks he could look at him forever and never get tired of it, but he  _ is  _ tired — he’s fucking  _ exhausted —  _ and he finds himself drifting off before he even realizes.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me about this AU on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](https://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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